"password authentication failed for user" after push to Heroku

Question

I followed the heroku documentation to install a django app and at first it worked fine. After a day I pushed some changes to the server. After that, I was not able to access the app at all: FATAL: password authentication failed for user "drjstoymyqyarj"

I can not even sync the db anymore:

$ heroku run python manage.py syncdb
Running `python manage.py syncdb` attached to terminal... up, run.1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 10, in <module>
    execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
  File "/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 443, in execute_from_command_line
    utility.execute()
  File "/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 382, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 196, in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 232, in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/base.py", line 371, in handle
    return self.handle_noargs(**options)
  File "/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/core/management/commands/syncdb.py", line 57, in handle_noargs
    cursor = connection.cursor()
  File "/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/__init__.py", line 306, in cursor
    cursor = self.make_debug_cursor(self._cursor())
  File "/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django/db/backends/postgresql_psycopg2/base.py", line 177, in _cursor
    self.connection = Database.connect(**conn_params)
  File "/app/.heroku/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/psycopg2/__init__.py", line 179, in connect
    connection_factory=connection_factory, async=async)
psycopg2.OperationalError: FATAL:  password authentication failed for user "drjstoymyqyarj"
FATAL:  password authentication failed for user "drjstoymyqyarj"

I have used the database settings recommended in the heroku doc:

import dj_database_url
DATABASES = {'default': dj_database_url.config(default='postgres://localhost')}

When I check the logs after pushing code to the server, there is a suspicious Process exited with status 143 that I did not notice before. Maybe that has something to do with it?

$ heroku logs
heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to starting
heroku[web.1]: Stopping all processes with SIGTERM
heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command `python ./manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:41048 --noreload`
app[web.1]: Validating models...
app[web.1]: 
app[web.1]: 0 errors found
app[web.1]: Django version 1.4, using settings 'ClosetList.settings'
app[web.1]: Development server is running at http://0.0.0.0:41048/
app[web.1]: Quit the server with CONTROL-C.
heroku[web.1]: Process exited with status 143
heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up

[Edit]
Same error msg with heroku pg:psql. I am however able to open a Django shell with heroku run python manage.py shell, but I can not access any data from within it (same error of course).
[/Edit]

any help with this is appreciated.

Answer 1

Run

heroku config

and see if there are more than 2 heroku dbs configured and also see if DATABASE_URL point to your configured DB. If not, then you can promote your db to default DATABASE_URL by running:

heroku pg:promote HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_GREEN

Where HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_GREEN is your database name, you will see HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_GREEN_URL in your config.

Once your configured database is promoted to default database, you are ready to go.