Error trying to (re)attach a database: "app already contains a secret named DATABASE_URL"

Questions / Help
1

After having detach and removed a previous db and then created a new one (I wanted to restore from a snapshot of an other db from a previous version of the app), I always receive an error when trying to attach the new one.

These are the steps I followed:

1) Detach the db

$ flyctl pg connect -a <my-pg-app>
# DROP DATABASE <my-attached-app-db> WITH (FORCE);
# DROP USER <my-attached-app-role> WITH (FORCE);
$ flyctl postgres detach --app  <my-app>  <my-pg-app>

2) Delete detached db via web dashboard interface

3) Create new db

# first tried to restore from a snap shot via $ fly postgres create --snapshot-id <my-snapshot-id> with no luck, then tried to create a brand new db:
$ fly postgres create

4) Attach new created db

$ fly postgres attach

5) Got error

Error consumer app "<my-app>" already contains a secret named DATABASE_URL

6) Try to manually (re)set the DATABASE_URL

$ fly secrets set DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:<my-app-db-password>@<my-app-db>.internal:5432 --app <my-app>

5) Got same error

Error consumer app "<my-app>" already contains a secret named DATABASE_URL

6) Try to unset DATABASE_URL

$ fly secrets unset DATABASE_URL  --verbose
Release v15 created
==> Monitoring deployment
[...]
2022-09-30T08:01:43Z   [info]  /app/releases/0.1.0/runtime.exs:51
2022-09-30T08:01:43Z   [info]ERROR! Config provider Config.Reader failed with:
2022-09-30T08:01:43Z   [info]** (RuntimeError) environment variable DATABASE_URL is missing.
2022-09-30T08:01:43Z   [info]For example: ecto://USER:PASS@HOST/DATABASE
[...]
--> v15 failed - Failed due to unhealthy allocations - not rolling back to stable job version 15 as current job has same specification and deploying as v16
--> Troubleshooting guide at https://fly.io/docs/getting-started/troubleshooting/
Error abort

I don’t understand if I’m missing something, or if something went wrong behind the scenes outside my control. Any suggestion to avoid to resolve deleting and recreating also the app?

2

Ah, looking at the error, it appears to be coming from your app because setting secrets incurs a deploy. Could you fly scale count 0 to scale to zero? Then you should be able to unset and set your env var.

1 Like
3

setting secrets incurs a deploy

oh, right, good point

Could you fly scale count 0 to scale to zero? Then you should be able to unset and set your env var.

this solved the stranding

Thank you @jphenow !

As a reference for future readers, these are all the further steps I’ve done:

$ fly scale count 0

$ fly secrets unset DATABASE_URL

$ fly postgres attach <my-pg-app>

$ fly scale count 1

$ fly deploy
3 Likes
4

FYI: flyctl secrets unset has a --stage option. flyctl secrets unset · Fly Docs

1 Like