RE: BUG #19392: PG_UPGRADE is non-functional on Windows

Mea culpa, I apologise to the list for misreading the source code.

My problem stemmed from pg_upgrade needing to have the superuser password available via PGPASS (or PGPASSWORD). It's not clear why it included the word "postmaster" in the error message which sent me off down a rathole of "it has no idea what it's doing, perhaps its connecting to the wrong instance, etc..."

>>> port 5432 failed: fe_sendauth: no password supplied could not connect to source postmaster started with the command

I do think that having it check for not having a password and actually announcing that up front would be an improvement, rather than doing the compatibility checks, etc and waiting until it tries to startup before failing cryptically.

Nevertheless, I have successfully upgraded my V16 to V18 using pg_upgrade on Windows 11.

I can't see how I close the ticket, but it can certainly be closed as PEBKAC

Jeff

From: Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net>
Sent: Wednesday, 4 February 2026 11:33 PM
To: David G. Johnston <david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com>; Jeff Laing <jeff(dot)laing(at)spatialnetworx(dot)ai>; pgsql-bugs(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: BUG #19392: PG_UPGRADE is non-functional on Windows

On 2026-02-04 We 1:43 AM, David G. Johnston wrote:
On Tuesday, February 3, 2026, PG Bug reporting form <noreply(at)postgresql(dot)org<mailto:noreply(at)postgresql(dot)org>> wrote:
The following bug has been logged on the website:

Bug reference: 19392
Logged by: Jeff Laing
Email address: jeff(dot)laing(at)spatialnetworx(dot)ai<mailto:jeff(dot)laing(at)spatialnetworx(dot)ai>
PostgreSQL version: 18.1
Operating system: Windows 11
Description:

After struggling with it for a while, I've come to the conclusion that
PG_UPGRADE is not functional on Windows.

This is a very hard to accept premise and this bug report doesn't support it.

pg_upgrade is tested on Windows all the time, both in the buildfarm and in CI, so the statement that it is not functional doesn't add up.

cheers

andrew

--

Andrew Dunstan

EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com<https://www.enterprisedb.com/>