How do I transfer production database to staging on Heroku using pgbackups? Getting error

On Heroku, I am trying to copy the production database into my staging app using the pgbackups addon. I followed the instructions on the addon page: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/pgbackups

First I captured the DB:

heroku pgbackups:capture --app production-app 

That worked:

HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_PURPLE (DATABASE_URL)  ----backup--->  b238

Capturing... done
Storing... done

However when I try to restore it on the staging app:

heroku pgbackups:restore DATABASE `heroku pgbackups:url --app production-app` --remote staging

I get the following error message:

DATABASE_URL does not match any of your databases
 !    Could not resolve database DATABASE
 !    
 !    Available databases: 

I have also tried typing in the full URL:

 heroku pgbackups:url b238 --app production-app
 heroku pgbackups:restore DATABASE "https://s3.amazonaws.com/..." --remote staging

and also tried naming the app (instead of --remote staging):

heroku pgbackups:restore DATABASE `heroku pgbackups:url --app production-app` --app staging-app

None of these worked. It's interesting to note that the error message says there are no "Available databases". I'm assuming it is referring to the staging app which is indeed empty. If I type:

heroku pgbackups

I get:

 !    No backups. Capture one with `heroku pgbackups:capture`.

To find the available backups (production), I need to type:

heroku pgbackups --app production-app

and I get the list of current backups. I don't know if this is normal or even if it is related to the problem, but I thought I should mention it.

I have read and tried every answer here on SO but nothing worked. Any ideas?

Update for mid-2017 (stealing from Takehiro Mouri's answer - simplify the DATABSE_NAME part)

Update for mid-2015...

The pgbackups add-on has been deprecated. No more pgbackups:transfer.

To copy a database from yourapp to yourapp_staging:

# turn off the web dynos in staging
heroku maintenance:on -a yourapp-staging

# if you have non-web-dynos, do them too
heroku ps:scale worker=0 -a yourapp-staging

# backup the staging database if you are paranoid like me (optional)
heroku pg:backups capture -a yourapp-staging

# execute the copy
heroku pg:copy your-app::DATABASE_URL DATABASE_URL -a yourapp-staging

Then when it's complete, turn staging back on:

# this is if you have workers, change '1' to whatever
heroku ps:scale worker=1 -a yourapp-staging

heroku maintenance:off -a yourapp-staging

(source: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/upgrading-heroku-postgres-databases#upgrade-with-pg-copy-default)

UPDATE: You can run this command to transfer the database from production to staging: heroku pg:copy your-app::DATABASE_URL DATABASE_URL -a yourapp-staging

It will prompt you to confirm the action, and once you have done that, all of the data will be migrated.

UPDATE: This no longer works. Please refer to @lucas-nelson's answer below.

So things are even easier now .. checkout the transfer command as part of pgbackups

heroku pgbackups:transfer HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_PINK sushi-staging::HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_OLIVE -a sushi

https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/upgrade-heroku-postgres-with-pgbackups#transfering-databases-between-heroku-applications

This has worked beautifully for me taking production code back to my staging site.

Here's a simple and safe solution to this using Heroku's add-on attachments and forking. It does not require backups, no downtime, and does not overwrite any database.

You need to attach the production database to the staging app first, then fork on the staging app. If you fork on the production app, then attach to the staging app, the billing app will be the production app and you won't be able to detach the fork from it.

1. First find out the add-on name of your production database (here it is postgres-prod-123):

$ heroku addons --app myapp-production
heroku-postgresql (postgresql-prod-123)  standard-0  $50/month
 └─ as DATABASE

2. Then attach the production database add-on to your staging app. Give it a name like PRODUCTION_DB to make it easy to recognize:

$ heroku addons:attach postgresql-prod-123 --app myapp-staging --as PRODUCTION_DB

3. Then create a fork of the production database on the staging app:

$ heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:standard-0 --fork PRODUCTION_DB_URL --as STAGING_DB --app myapp-staging

4. Finally promote the fork to be the primary database of your staging app:

$ heroku pg:promote STAGING_DB --app myapp-staging

Done! Your staging app is now using a copy of your production database. Note that your previous staging database is still there, you may want to destroy it after you've made sure everything works.

To clean up, detach the production database from the staging app:

$ heroku addons:detach postgresql-prod-123 --app myapp-staging

This works for me:

heroku pg:copy you-app-production::DATABASE DATABASE -a you-app-staging

You can do this using below command

heroku pg:copy <production_app_name>::HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_BLACK_URL OLIVE -a <staging_app_name> --confirm <staging_app_name>

I was struggling with the same issue. According to the answer to this question, the problem could be your heroku gem version. I just upgraded my version (from 2.26.2 to 2.26.6) and now it works.

First create an up to date backup of production:

heroku pgbackups:capture -a productionappslug --expire

Find out what colour Heroku has named your database.

https://postgres.heroku.com/databases or https://dashboard.heroku.com/apps/STAGINGAPPSLUG/resources

Then load the production db backup into staging (changing RED to whatever colour yours is):

heroku pgbackups:restore HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_RED -a stagingappslug `heroku pgbackups:url -a productionappslug`

stagingappslug and liveappslug are whatever shortnames your heroku apps are called.

To transfer (copy) the production database (source database) to the staging database (target database) you will need to invoke pg:copy from the target application, referencing a source database.

heroku pg:copy source-application::OLIVE HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_PINK -a target-application

Another example:

heroku pg:copy my-production-app::HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_OLIVE HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_PINK --app my-staging-app

To obtain the colour names of your databases, use:

heroku pg --app my-production-app
heroku pg --app my-staging-app

See pg:copy

After NO LUCK. (Im using heroku gem 2.31.4) I did the following (help for the weary)

1. Login into Heroku Database console

2. Login to staging > 'settings' > PGRestore > Copy 'Connection Settings' into a text file.

3. Login to production > Snapshots, press '+' to make a new backup as of now. Then press download. Download into the apps /tmp folder or whever you want.

4. Set staging to maintenance mode

   $ heroku maintenance:on

5. Run the command like so, with Connection Settings text and dump file at the end: PGPASSWORD={...bits of stuff here...} -p 5432 'tmp/b048.dump.dump'

6. After run:

   $ heroku maintenance:off

7. Login to staging and check that things match. Find a recent transaction you know is in production if you can via. $ heroku run console for both apps and check ids match.

I think its not --remote its --app try this:

heroku pgbackups:restore DATABASE `heroku pgbackups:url --app production-app` --app staging-app

This is what worked for me

• Download the backup from heroku console and uploaded it to s3.
• heroku pg:backups restore 'DUMP_FILE_URL_FROM_S3' DATABASE --app MY_APP