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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-13T05:45:51+00:00

I installed the latest version of postgres on OS X Lion using homebrew. The

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I installed the latest version of postgres on OS X Lion using homebrew. The path is correct:

$ which postgres
/usr/local/bin/postgres
$ which psql
/usr/local/bin/psql

and brew doctor is happy. However, when I try to create a user, this happens: 

$ createuser myuser
Password:
createuser: could not connect to database postgres: FATAL:  password authentication failed for user <$USER>

The password is definitely not my regular user password and I have no idea how to find out what it’s supposed to be. It’s possible that I used homebrew to install a different version of postgres some time ago while installing a bunch of other stuff, but I don’t recall. I did notice a different version of ‘postgresql’ that was installed alongside the new version of ‘postgres’, which I removed.

Don’t know if this is a clue, but when I do this:

$ sudo su - postgres

The path to psql (but not postgres) is no longer correct: 

postgres$ which postgres
/usr/local/bin/postgres
postgres$ which psql
/usr/bin/psql

Might be something simple. Would appreciate any help. Thanks!

Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5
homebrew 0.9.3
postgres 9.2.1
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I solved the problem: I had to stop the server for the old version of postgres that came with my system. I didn’t realize it, but I guess it starts on system start. Now I’m not having a problem.

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