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Asked: 2026-05-26T08:33:00+00:00

I am reinstalling PostgreSQL using pgInstaller postgresql-8.3.16-1. An Error occurs in the last step

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I am reinstalling PostgreSQL using pgInstaller postgresql-8.3.16-1. An Error occurs in the last step of the install process:

Failed to run initdb:1!

\tmp\initdb.log shows this message:

The application has failed to start because its side-by-side
configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or
use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail.

The message is quite simple but I can’t locate the root cause of the install failure.

Any one knows what’s the reason?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You probably already have a database cluster installed in the location where your Posgres8.3 install is trying to init a new one. You can’t really mix and match versions like that.

    If possible, install the old version you had when you created the existing database. Then use pg_dumpall to create a .SQL dump of all of your data. You can then move or delete the old database (usually at /var/lib/pgsql) and install the new version. finally, apply the database dump to get the old data back.

    For more details on this, read the Upgrading a PostgreSQL cluster manual page.

    If you are installing the same version, there’s no need to upgrade the cluster, you can probably safely ignore errors about initdb, so long as everything runs Ok.

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