psql: FATAL: role "user" does not exist

Question

My psql does not open. Weirdly enough. I've created a user "Ben" through logging using psql -U postgres that lets me open PSQL and I run a command

CREATE USER Ben WITH PASSWORD '123';

After I do that it says ERROR: role "ben" already exists

But when I run psql it throws me psql: FATAL: role "Ben" does not exist

Case matters. Either be consistent everywhere and use lowercase or wrap it in double quotes. — zerkms
– zerkms, Commented Nov 29, 2016 at 0:01
Ahhh, would it resolve if I DROP User Ben; then recreate like CREATE USER Ben WITH PASSWORD '123'; — Biplov
– Biplov, Commented Nov 29, 2016 at 0:06

harmic · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-29 00:16:21Z

1

When you issue an SQL command like this:

CREATE USER Ben WITH PASSWORD '123';

identifiers within this command (such as the user name) are folded to lower case. So the user is actually created as 'ben'.

When you issue a shell command such as:

psql -U Ben mydatabase

then the identifier case is preserved, making it case sensitive.

If you really want the user name capitalized, then double quote it in SQL, like this:

CREATE USER "Ben" WITH PASSWORD '123';

Otherwise leave it all lower case and connect with:

psql -U ben mydatabase

answered Nov 29, 2016 at 0:16

harmic

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