pg_restore: [archiver] input file is too short error in postgres

Question

I am trying to dump the database in my local system by using the command :

pg_restore --host=localhost --port=5432 --dbname=dev_db --no-owner --no-privileges db_dump_new.backup

but I am getting the error :

pg_restore: [archiver] input file is too short (read 0, expected 5)

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

If you're using docker and redirecting the dump file from your local machine, don't forget -i. This won't work:

docker exec <container> pg_restore -U "$USER" < ./localfile.dump;

Be sure that the docker container can see standard in with the -i option! This should work:

docker exec -i <container> pg_restore -U "$USER" < ./localfile.dump;

Answer 2

I encountered the same error. In my case I had simply neglected to specify the backup file at the end of the command.

Answer 3

In my case I used docker

$ docker exec a5f7b094c523 pg_restore -d my_new_db < "./2256.dump"
pg_restore: [archiver] input file is too short (read 0, expected 5)

And the issue was that "./2256.dump" is not a binary file but a plain sql text dump.

To check that just do

$ head ~/2256.dump                                                                                                    
--
-- PostgreSQL database dump
--

-- Dumped from database version 10.8 (Ubuntu 10.8-0ubuntu0.18.04.1)
-- Dumped by pg_dump version 10.8 (Ubuntu 10.8-0ubuntu0.18.04.1)

SET statement_timeout = 0;
SET lock_timeout = 0;
SET idle_in_transaction_session_timeout = 0;

And to import sql dump fo

$ pv ~/2256.dump |docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml -f docker-compose.override.yml -T db psql "fight-round3"