Postgresql History Error: Could not restore file "00000004.history" from archive: command not found

Question

I am encountering an error in one of the replication clusters on my Ubuntu machine with PostgreSQL version 13 database. The error message is as follows:

FATAL: could not restore file "00000004.history" from archive: command not found.

I looked at the log files of the cluster and extracted the latest log file. The details of the log file are as follows:

● [email protected] - PostgreSQL Cluster 13-mydb
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/[email protected]; enabled-runtime; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: protocol) since Thu 2023-11-09 17:01:44 +03; 1min 32s ago
    Process: 767207 ExecStart=/usr/bin/pg_ctlcluster --skip-systemctl-redirect 13-mydb start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Nov 09 17:01:44 master postgresql@13-mydb[767207]: sh: 1: pgbackrest: not found
Nov 09 17:01:44 master postgresql@13-mydb[767207]: 2023-11-09 17:01:44.700 +03 [767228] FATAL:  could not restore file "00000004.history" from archive: command not found
Nov 09 17:01:44 master postgresql@13-mydb[767207]: 2023-11-09 17:01:44.703 +03 [767227] LOG:  startup process (PID 767228) exited with exit code 1
Nov 09 17:01:44 master postgresql@13-mydb[767207]: 2023-11-09 17:01:44.703 +03 [767227] LOG:  aborting startup due to startup process failure
Nov 09 17:01:44 master postgresql@13-mydb[767207]: 2023-11-09 17:01:44.745 +03 [767227] LOG:  database system is shut down
Nov 09 17:01:44 master postgresql@13-mydb[767207]: pg_ctl: could not start server
Nov 09 17:01:44 master postgresql@13-mydb[767207]: Examine the log output.
Nov 09 17:01:44 master systemd[1]: [email protected]: Can't open PID file /run/postgresql/13-mydb.pid (yet?) after start: Operation not permitted
Nov 09 17:01:44 master systemd[1]: [email protected]: Failed with result 'protocol'.
Nov 09 17:01:44 master systemd[1]: Failed to start PostgreSQL Cluster 13-mydb.

I couldn't figure out what I need to do in this regard.

The restore_command may stem from a previous archive recovery on the primary server.

Answer 1

The immediate cause is that you gave a restore_command configured in postgresql.conf or postgresql.auto.conf that contains pgbackrest, but either pgBackRest is not installed or the command cannot be found, because you didn't use the absolute path to a non-standard location, like

restore_command = '/path/to/pgbackrest/installation/bin/pgbackrest ...'

Perhaps that restore_command is left behind from a previous restore on the primary server. In that case, you can simply remove it. You should also remove all other recovery parameters like recovery_target_*.

However, it is a good thing to have restore_command set on a standby server, so that the standby can catch up using WAL from the archive if it falls behind. For that, you'd have to install pgBackRest on the standby server.