[Support] Import stuck at "checking the manifest" during migration from SQLite to PostgreSQL on Unraid Docker

[OliverBO22]

What's your question or issue?

Hello,

I have installed paperless-ngx as a Docker container on Unraid. I want to migrate from SQLite to PostgreSQL. I followed the recommended steps:

Exported all documents and metadata with
docker exec -it paperless-ngx python3 /usr/src/paperless/src/manage.py document_exporter --split-manifest /usr/src/paperless/data/sicherung

The generated manifest.json is quite large (~804 MB), with around 9,200 documents in total.

Running the document_sanity_checker reports no errors on the export.

When trying to import this export into a fresh paperless-ngx environment configured with PostgreSQL, I run:

docker exec -it paperless-ngx python3 /usr/src/paperless/src/manage.py document_importer -v 3 /usr/src/paperless/data/sicherung

The output shows only "checking the manifest" and nothing else. After several hours, the command ends and returns to the prompt, but no documents are imported.

On the Unraid dashboard, I can confirm there are no hardware resource restrictions (CPU, RAM, disk I/O).

My questions:

• How can I diagnose why the importer stops silently after checking the manifest?
• Are there additional logs or debug options I can enable to get more detailed error messages or progress output?
• Does anyone have recommendations for managing large manifests or speeding up imports in this scenario?

Thank you very much in advance for any help or pointers!

What have you tried?

No response

Paperless-ngx version

2.19.3

Host OS

Unraid 7.20

Installation method

Docker - official image

System status

No response

Relevant logs or output

That's the log of the docker:
[init-start] paperless-ngx docker container starting...
[init-start] paperless-ngx docker container starting init as root
[env-init] Checking for environment from files
[env-init] No *_FILE environment found
[init-redis-wait] Waiting for Redis to report ready
[init-db-wait] Waiting for postgresql to report ready
[init-db-wait] Waiting for PostgreSQL to start...
[init-tesseract-langs] Checking if additional teseract languages needed
Installing languages...
[init-user] No UID changes for paperless
[init-user] No GID changes for paperless
[init-folders] Running with root privileges, adjusting directories and permissions
[init-tesseract-langs] Package tesseract-ocr-eng already installed!
[init-tesseract-langs] Package tesseract-ocr-deu already installed!
[init-tesseract-langs] Additional packages installed
Waiting for Redis...
Connected to Redis broker.
[init-redis-wait] Redis ready
Connected to PostgreSQL
[init-db-wait] Database is ready
[init-migrations] Apply database migrations...
Operations to perform:
  Apply all migrations: account, admin, auditlog, auth, authtoken, contenttypes, django_celery_results, documents, guardian, mfa, paperless, paperless_mail, sessions, socialaccount
Running migrations:
  No migrations to apply.
[init-superuser] Not creating superuser
[init-checks] Running Django checks
System check identified no issues (0 silenced).
[custom-init] /custom-cont-init.d doesn't exist, nothing to do
[init-complete] paperless-ngx docker container init completed in 11 seconds
[init-complete] Starting services
[svc-flower] Checking if we should start flower...
[svc-flower] Not starting flower
[INFO] Starting granian (main PID: 173)
[INFO] Listening at: http://:::8000
[INFO] Spawning worker-1 with PID: 193
celery beat v5.5.3 (immunity) is starting.
[2025-11-02 16:55:35,453] [INFO] [paperless.management.consumer] Using inotify to watch directory for changes: /usr/src/paperless/consume
[2025-11-02 16:55:35,585] [INFO] [paperless.asgi] [init] Paperless-ngx version: v2.19.3
__    -    ... __   -        _
LocalTime -> 2025-11-02 16:55:35
Configuration ->
    . broker -> redis://192.168.178.175:6379//
    . loader -> celery.loaders.app.AppLoader
    . scheduler -> celery.beat.PersistentScheduler
    . db -> /usr/src/paperless/data/celerybeat-schedule.db
    . logfile -> [stderr]@%INFO
    . maxinterval -> 5.00 minutes (300s)
[2025-11-02 16:55:35,915] [INFO] [celery.beat] beat: Starting...
 
 -------------- celery@dce211065431 v5.5.3 (immunity)
--- ***** ----- 
-- ******* ---- Linux-6.12.54-Unraid-x86_64-with-glibc2.36 2025-11-02 16:55:35
- *** --- * --- 
- ** ---------- [config]
- ** ---------- .> app:         paperless:0x14865404dfd0
- ** ---------- .> transport:   redis://192.168.178.175:6379//
- ** ---------- .> results:     
- *** --- * --- .> concurrency: 1 (prefork)
-- ******* ---- .> task events: ON
--- ***** ----- 
 -------------- [queues]
                .> celery           exchange=celery(direct) key=celery
                

[tasks]
  . documents.bulk_edit.delete
  . documents.signals.handlers.send_webhook
  . documents.tasks.bulk_update_documents
  . documents.tasks.check_scheduled_workflows
  . documents.tasks.consume_file
  . documents.tasks.empty_trash
  . documents.tasks.index_optimize
  . documents.tasks.sanity_check
  . documents.tasks.train_classifier
  . documents.tasks.update_document_content_maybe_archive_file
  . paperless_mail.mail.apply_mail_action
  . paperless_mail.mail.error_callback
  . paperless_mail.tasks.process_mail_accounts

[2025-11-02 16:55:36,017] [INFO] [celery.worker.consumer.connection] Connected to redis://192.168.178.175:6379//
[2025-11-02 16:55:36,032] [INFO] [celery.apps.worker] celery@dce211065431 ready.

[shamoon]

Those logs are from your new "clean" install? Yes they look normal.

It's hard to say of course, my guess is that it's still running out of memory. While the command is running have you looked at something like htop?

But -v 3 is a hallucination: https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/administration/#importer and might be causing an issue

There isnt a way to get more verbose output, but I would certainly expect you to see something if it starts.

[OliverBO22]

I have 178,337 auditlog.logentries in the manifest.json...

[stumpylog]

That is a very large number. Unless you really need them, I would remove those. Or remove them and see if import works.

[OliverBO22]

Sorry for the stupid question, but I not an expert. Each entry goes from
{
"model": "auditlog.logentry",
to
}
},
Right?

[stumpylog]

I'm not quite sure what you're asking. If you want to export, excluding those, you could disable the audit log enabled setting and export again

[OliverBO22]

All good, thanks to AI I installed jq on my windows-computer and now I am deleting all logentries. Seems to take some time...

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