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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-02T16:10:37+00:00

Im teaching myself rails. Im a programmer but not a web programmer. Im going

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Im teaching myself rails. Im a programmer but not a web programmer. Im going through Michael Hartl’s book here

It mentions that its a good idea to start deploying your app right from the beginning. I agree. So I got an account on Heroku and went through ther setup etc. Then created my 1st app, git and the works. Then followed all the instructions on Heroku’s site. Finally I came to pushing my app up to Heroku using this command:

git push heroku master

The book says that there could be problems at this stage because the app on my machine is using sqlite3 while Heroku wants postgresql.
The book suggests changing a line in the gem file of my app from 

gem 'sqlite3'

to 

gem 'sqlite3-ruby', :group => :development

I tried that and then ran bundle install and then tried to push the app. No luck
I get this message on my console:

An error occured while installing sqlite3 (1.3.6), and Bundler cannot continue.
   Make sure that `gem install sqlite3 -v '1.3.6'` succeeds before bundling.

!
! Failed to install gems via Bundler.
!
! Heroku push rejected, failed to compile Ruby/rails app

So I tried what the Heroku website suggests here

to change my gemfile

from this:

gem 'sqlite3'

to this:

gem 'pg'

so I tried this approach and then ran ‘bundle install’. But that didn’t work either. I get this message on my console:

Installing pg (0.13.2) with native extensions 
Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

        /Users/AM/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin/ruby extconf.rb 
checking for pg_config... no
No pg_config... trying anyway. If building fails, please try again with
 --with-pg-config=/path/to/pg_config
checking for libpq-fe.h... no
Can't find the 'libpq-fe.h header
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:
    --with-opt-dir
    --with-opt-include
    --without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
    --with-opt-lib
    --without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
    --with-make-prog
    --without-make-prog
    --srcdir=.
    --curdir
    --ruby=/Users/AM/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin/ruby
    --with-pg
    --without-pg
    --with-pg-dir
    --without-pg-dir
    --with-pg-include
    --without-pg-include=${pg-dir}/include
    --with-pg-lib
    --without-pg-lib=${pg-dir}/lib
    --with-pg-config
    --without-pg-config
    --with-pg_config
    --without-pg_config


Gem files will remain installed in /Users/AM/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/pg-0.13.2     for inspection.
Results logged to /Users/AM/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/pg-0.13.2/ext/gem_make.out
An error occured while installing pg (0.13.2), and Bundler cannot continue.
Make sure that `gem install pg -v '0.13.2'` succeeds before bundling.

Tried to run this command:

gem install pg

that failed with the following error message:

Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing pg:
    ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/Users/AM/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin/ruby extconf.rb
checking for pg_config... no
No pg_config... trying anyway. If building fails, please try again with
--with-pg-config=/path/to/pg_config
checking for libpq-fe.h... no
Can't find the 'libpq-fe.h header
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:
--with-opt-dir
--with-opt-include
--without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
--with-opt-lib
--without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
--with-make-prog
--without-make-prog
--srcdir=.
--curdir
--ruby=/Users/AM/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin/ruby
--with-pg
--without-pg
--with-pg-dir
--without-pg-dir
--with-pg-include
--without-pg-include=${pg-dir}/include
--with-pg-lib
--without-pg-lib=${pg-dir}/lib
--with-pg-config
--without-pg-config
--with-pg_config
--without-pg_config


Gem files will remain installed in /Users/AM/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/pg-0.13.2     for inspection.
Results logged to /Users/AM/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/pg-0.13.2/ext/gem_make.out

Can someone please help me with this. ive hit a roadblock. Not sure what to do next.Thanks

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    So this is what worked:
    1) Install postgresql on the machine

    2) For permanent fix – Go to the .bash_rc file and add the following:
    export PATH = “/Library/PostgreSQL/9.1/bin/”:$PATH
    OR
    just to install the missing files and run the bundle command one time type this in the root of the app:
    PATH=$PATH:/Library/PostgreSQL/9.1/bin/ bundle install
    or
    PATH=$PATH:/Library/PostgreSQL/9.1/bin/ gem install pg

    3) Now the pg gem is installed

    This post was helpful:
    http://excid3.com/blog/installing-postgresql-and-pg-gem-on-mac-osx/

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