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Sourcegraph Upgrade Failed: Dirty Database Migration Error

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Workaround available Self-hosted Updated November 14, 2026Based on 2 user reportsHow we research

Quick answer

If a migration is interrupted the schema is marked dirty; rerun the migrator to retry, and contact support before editing the migration table by hand.

Most likely fix: Re-run the migrator

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

  1. 1. Re-run the migrator

    1. From 3.37 onward migrations run in the separate migrator service
    2. Re-run it with --ignore-single-dirty-log to retry the failed migration
    3. Only mark a migration complete (sg add-log) after verifying it finished
    Did this fix it?

  2. 2. If you skipped a version

    1. Revert to the last minor version you ran, then follow the supported upgrade path
    Did this fix it?

  3. 3. Get help

    1. Enterprise customers: support@sourcegraph.com
    2. Back up Postgres before any manual change to the schema_migrations table
    Did this fix it?

Symptoms

After a self-hosted upgrade the frontend will not start and logs report a dirty database.

Why it happens

  • Migration interrupted during upgrade
  • Skipped a required minor version
  • Pod killed by a health check during a long migration (older versions)

This guide also covers

  • sourcegraph dirty database
  • sourcegraph upgrade failed
  • sourcegraph migration error

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