Unable to create Teslamate backup

[StigThomsen]

I recently messed up something in my docker compose configuration, which made the postgres database container recreate itself, in such a way, that the Teslamate database went empty. Did I have a backup? nope ... so I cried ...

But, life moves on and new data gets collected. But of course now, I don't want to end up in the same situation as before, for when I the next time let my butter fingers ruin a good docker compose config.
So I went to get create a Teslamate backup. But only to find this as the result:

docker compose exec -T postgres-database pg_dump -U teslamate teslamate > /root/teslamate.bck
WARN[0000] The "baX" variable is not set. Defaulting to a blank string.
pg_dump: error: query returned 0 rows instead of one: EXECUTE dumpBaseType('24686')

It doesn't exactly look promising and the bck file is of course equal to zero bytes.
(yes, the container for the postgres database is called postgres-database in my setup, as I had another container already called database doing something else. And no I am not renaming it, as that is what caused the afore mentioned crying incident)

Quick search on the postgres error gives results in the area of indexes gone bad and what have we. Not really something I would like to venture into.
The database now contains logging on a recent roadtrip through Europe, so not suuuuper keen on losing the content once again :-)

Any help is appreciated :-)

[StigThomsen]

Hi there!
Now there appears to be a bit more activity in the discussion forum, so just bumping this one up, in the hopes someone might have a suggestion to what's causing this error?

For quick reference, doesn't matter which way I try to run the pg_dump, through docker compose or an interactive prompt (exec -it), gives the same result.
The baX variable thingy I have gotten rid off, that was due to a bad character in the encryption key.

Any suggestions ?

[KoycIt]

Hi, I'm not an expert but I use this to make a backup:
sudo docker-compose exec -T database pg_dump -U teslamate teslamate > /home/ubuntu/tmbackup/teslamate.bck_11182023
(you can change or delete the date if you don't need it).
I created a .sh file containing instructions for creating and sending the daily backup to my dropbox (I did it some time ago and I have no memory of the various steps taken..)
If it helps you I can write the contents here. Let me know, have a nice day

[rc-16]

I just use the command in the documentation and it works fine.

Your command line includes "postgres-database" - mine is just "database".
I also store the backup in my home directory (/home/tesla/backups) rather than /root - not sure if that has any effect.

Finally, I find that you have to run docker commands from the directory that the docker-compose.yml file is located otherwise things fail.