Trying to restore data from new Postgres version to old Postgres version

Question

I took a backup of the Postgres database version 15, and now I want to restore that data to Postgres version 13.1.2? is it possible?

• jjanes: What command line did you use?

Answer 1

It is not supported to downgrade PostgreSQL, no matter what.

The only way to success is the following cumbersome route:

• Take a plain-format dump with

  pg_dump -f dump.sql dbname
  

  You need to use pg_dump from version 15 for that

• Try to restore the dump to version 13 using psql. That will fail. Look at the error messages and edit dump.sql, manually changing the SQL syntax to avoid the error. Then try to restore again, and so on until all errors are gone.

I hope 13.1.2 is a typo, and you mean 13.12.

• datascinalyst: Thanks! Yes, 13.1.2 was indeed a typo