postgresql: FATAL: password authentication failed for user "douglas"

Special characters in postgresql are converted to different characters while execution. Make sure you do not have special characters (#,$,etc..) in your password.

If you do, change the postgresql password as follows:

sudo -u postgresql psql
postgresql=#ALTER USER yourusername WITH PASSWORD 
'set_new_password_without_special_character';

Make sure you do not forget the ; at the end of postgresql command.
Then run python manage.py and it should work!

If you are bone-headed like me and have used ‘USERNAME’ instead of ‘USER’ in your Django database configs in settings.py, make sure you change it to ‘USER’ else you will see this same error. Hope this helps someone like me down the road.

You can try this:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'telusko',
        'USER': 'postgres', # not USERNAME, that will cause an error.
        'PASSWORD': '1234',
        'HOST':'localhost',
    }
}

In my case, I had to change

'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',

to

'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',

Hope it helps someone!

It’s also possible that your PostgreSQL server is not running. Please run next command, to check if postgres is running:

sudo service postgresql status

If not please run it, using:

sudo service postgresql start

Also, you can have wrong port in your settings. To check where Postgres is running use:

sudo netstat -plunt |grep postgres

And after update PORT in DATABASE config in Django settings

Another reason why this happens is if you have a conflicting version of postgres running. I had one running in docker and another on my system.

systemctl stop postgresql to stop the system version and purge it if you’d rather use only the docker version.

Try this for creating the user for Postgres

postgres=# create user username with encrypted password 'password';

Add permissions

postgres=# grant all on database db_name to username;

other useful commands might help

sudo -u postgres psql

du+ #list of user

l+ # list of DB

Credits to this article

Note: the database name and the username are always in lowercase, even if you create them with capitals.

For me it was as simple as using capital letters in my db and user name.

It seems that postgres automatically ignores case:

postgres=# CREATE USER MyProjectUser WITH PASSWORD 'password';

is then stored as:

postgres=# du+
                                          List of roles
 Role name |                         Attributes                         | Member of | Description
-----------+------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-------------
 myprojectuser |                                                        | {}        |
 postgres  | Superuser, Create role, Create DB, Replication, Bypass RLS | {}        |

So in my database, this:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        .
        .
        'USER': 'MyProjectUser',
        'PASSWORD': 'password',}}

wasn’t recognized & threw password auth failure error.

I had not exactly the same problem cause mine was with docker-compose, django but mainly with postgres in which in steps of building django project (note deletion of database wasnt an issue) I couldnt migrate my database so by deleting datadb folder I attempted to solve it. for more information on my problem Django Postgres docker-compose connection error mainly failed: FATAL: password authentication failed for user foobar ERROR: 2

Wanna do my part as a fellow developer here who got this issue too

You might be following a sometimes dubious "by the book guide" to set up PGSQL with Django. Some of the guides do not require us to write down the HOST and PORT in the DATABASES section. Like this :

DATABASES = {
'default': {
    'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
    'NAME': 'urdb',
    'USER': 'your_username',
    'PASSWORD': '1234',
    'HOST':'localhost',
    'PORT':''
}}

I fixed this by :

• Check my actual host and port, in my case, the default port is 5433
• Put 5433 in the PORT

DATABASES = {
'default': {
    'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
    'NAME': 'urdb',
    'USER': 'your_username',
    'PASSWORD': '1234',
    'HOST':'localhost',
    'PORT':'5433'
}}

Et voila! No more authentication issues!

Don’t expect your environment nor codes to know everything! 🙂