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Troubleshooting

This guide describes how to resolve issues with Prisma Migrate in a development environment, which often involves resetting your database. For production-focused troubleshooting, see:

This guide does not apply for MongoDB.
Instead of migrate dev, db push is used for MongoDB.

Handling migration history conflicts​

A migration history conflict occurs when there are discrepancies between the migrations folder in the file system and the _prisma_migrations table in the database.

Causes of migration history conflict in a development environment​

  • A migration that has already been applied is later modified
  • A migration that has already been applied is missing from the file system

In a development environment, switching between feature branches can result in a history conflict because the _prisma_migrations table contains migrations from branch-1, and switching to branch-2 might cause some of those migrations to disappear.

Note: You should never purposefully delete or edit a migration, as this might result in discrepancies between development and production.

Fixing a migration history conflict in a development environment​

If Prisma Migrate detects a migration history conflict when you run prisma migrate dev, the CLI will ask to reset the database and reapply the migration history.

Schema drift​

Database schema drift occurs when your database schema is out of sync with your migration history - the database schema has 'drifted away' from the source of truth.

Causes of schema drift in a development environment​

Schema drift can occur if:

  • The database schema was changed without using migrations - for example, by using prisma db push or manually changing the database schema.

Note: The shadow database is required to detect schema drift, and can therefore only be done in a development environment.

Fixing schema drift in a development environment​

If you made manual changes to the database that you do not want to keep, or can easily replicate in the Prisma schema:

  1. Reset your database:

    npx prisma migrate reset

  2. Replicate the changes in the Prisma schema and generate a new migration:

    npx prisma migrate dev

If you made manual changes to the database that you want to keep, you can:

  1. Introspect the database:

    npx prisma db pull

    Prisma will update your schema with the changes made directly in the database.

  2. Generate a new migration to include the introspected changes in your migration history:

    npx prisma migrate dev --name introspected_change

    Prisma Migrate will prompt you to reset, then applies all existing migrations and a new migration based on the introspected changes. Your database and migration history are now in sync, including your manual changes.

Failed migrations​

Causes of failed migrations in a development environment​

A migration might fail if:

  • You modify a migration before running it and introduce a syntax error
  • You add a mandatory (NOT NULL) column to a table that already has data
  • The migration process stopped unexpectedly
  • The database shut down in the middle of the migration process

Each migration in the _prisma_migrations table has a logs column that stores the error.

Fixing failed migrations in a development environment​

The easiest way to handle a failed migration in a developer environment is to address the root cause and reset the database. For example:

  • If you introduced a SQL syntax error by manually editing the database, update the migration.sql file that failed and reset the database:

    prisma migrate reset

  • If you introduced a change in the Prisma schema that cannot be applied to a database with data (for example, a mandatory column in a table with data):

    1. Delete the migration.sql file.

    2. Modify the schema - for example, add a default value to the mandatory field.

    3. Migrate:

      prisma migrate dev

      Prisma Migrate will prompt you to reset the database and re-apply all migrations.

  • If something interrupted the migration process, reset the database:

    prisma migrate reset

Prisma Migrate and PgBouncer​

You might see the following error if you attempt to run Prisma Migrate commands in an environment that uses PgBouncer for connection pooling:

Error: undefined: Database error
Error querying the database: db error: ERROR: prepared statement "s0" already exists

See Prisma Migrate and PgBouncer workaround for further information and a workaround.