How do I transfer production database to staging on Heroku using pgbackups? Getting error

Question

On Heroku, I am trying to copy the production database into my staging app using the pgbackups addon. I followed the instructions on the addon page: https://devcenter.heroku.com

Answer 1

First create an up to date backup of production:

heroku pgbackups:capture -a productionappslug --expire

Find out what colour Heroku has named your database.

https://postgres.heroku.com/databases or https://dashboard.heroku.com/apps/STAGINGAPPSLUG/resources

Then load the production db backup into staging (changing RED to whatever colour yours is):

heroku pgbackups:restore HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_RED -a stagingappslug `heroku pgbackups:url -a productionappslug`

stagingappslug and liveappslug are whatever shortnames your heroku apps are called.

Answer 2

UPDATE: You can run this command to transfer the database from production to staging: heroku pg:copy your-app::DATABASE_URL DATABASE_URL -a yourapp-staging

It will prompt you to confirm the action, and once you have done that, all of the data will be migrated.

Answer 3

To transfer (copy) the production database (source database) to the staging database (target database) you will need to invoke pg:copy from the target application, referencing a source database.

heroku pg:copy source-application::OLIVE HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_PINK -a target-application

Another example:

heroku pg:copy my-production-app::HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_OLIVE HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_PINK --app my-staging-app

To obtain the colour names of your databases, use:

heroku pg --app my-production-app
heroku pg --app my-staging-app

See pg:copy

Answer 4

After NO LUCK. (Im using heroku gem 2.31.4) I did the following (help for the weary)

1. Login into Heroku Database console

2. Login to staging > 'settings' > PGRestore > Copy 'Connection Settings' into a text file.

3. Login to production > Snapshots, press '+' to make a new backup as of now. Then press download. Download into the apps /tmp folder or whever you want.

4. Set staging to maintenance mode

   $ heroku maintenance:on

5. Run the command like so, with Connection Settings text and dump file at the end: PGPASSWORD={...bits of stuff here...} -p 5432 'tmp/b048.dump.dump'

6. After run:

   $ heroku maintenance:off

7. Login to staging and check that things match. Find a recent transaction you know is in production if you can via. $ heroku run console for both apps and check ids match.

Answer 5

This works for me: heroku pg:copy you-app-production::DATABASE DATABASE -a you-app-staging

Answer 6

Update for mid-2017 (stealing from Takehiro Mouri's answer - simplify the DATABSE_NAME part)

Update for mid-2015...

The pgbackups add-on has been deprecated. No more pgbackups:transfer.

To copy a database from yourapp to yourapp_staging:

# turn off the web dynos in staging
heroku maintenance:on -a yourapp-staging

# if you have non-web-dynos, do them too
heroku ps:scale worker=0 -a yourapp-staging

# backup the staging database if you are paranoid like me (optional)
heroku pg:backups capture -a yourapp-staging

# execute the copy
heroku pg:copy your-app::DATABASE_URL DATABASE_URL -a yourapp-staging

Then when it's complete, turn staging back on:

# this is if you have workers, change '1' to whatever
heroku ps:scale worker=1 -a yourapp-staging

heroku maintenance:off -a yourapp-staging

(source: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/upgrading-heroku-postgres-databases#upgrade-with-pg-copy-default)