Location of failure: /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.3.0/gems/pups-1.3.0/lib/pups/exec_command.rb:131:in `spawn'
exec failed with the params {"cd"=>"$home", "tag"=>"migrate", "hook"=>"db_migrate", "cmd"=>["su discourse -c 'bundle exec rake db:migrate'"]}
bootstrap failed with exit code 1
**FAILED TO BOOTSTRAP** please scroll up and look for earlier error messages, there may be more than one.
./discourse-doctor may help diagnose the problem.
```
I managed to rebuild by deleting the solved plugin in the app.yml (using the `- rm -rf discourse-solved` command), and the owner of the forum could probably do without this plugin but I’d still like to fix this.
I don’t think the issue comes from the plugin, it may be a bad manipulation on the forum. But when I explore the database, I have at least 20-30 `\N` entries in value
Here is an extract:
| id | topic\_id | name | value | created at | updated at |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1579 | 35497 | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | 301435 | 2021-05-10 20:18:57.780444 | 2021-05-10 20:18:57.780444 |
| 1583 | **35506** | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | \N | 2021-05-12 18:38:58.11516 | 2021-05-12 18:38:58.11516 |
| 423 | 21211 | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | 153039 | 2019-09-04 21:01:37.811417 | 2019-09-04 21:01:37.811417 |
| 424 | 21685 | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | 156850 | 2019-09-09 04:39:28.388591 | 2019-09-09 04:39:28.388591 |
| 425 | 21711 | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | 157323 | 2019-09-11 11:51:14.375185 | 2019-09-11 11:51:14.375185 |
| 428 | 20982 | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | 157807 | 2019-09-14 08:53:16.079032 | 2019-09-14 08:53:16.079032 |
| 429 | 4949 | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | 157515 | 2019-09-16 07:57:00.862694 | 2019-09-16 07:57:00.862694 |
| 430 | 15439 | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | 158645 | 2019-09-19 00:56:20.112603 | 2019-09-19 00:56:20.112603 |
| 1603 | 35710 | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | \N | 2021-05-19 20:58:06.598697 | 2021-05-19 20:58:06.598697 |
| 701 | 25377 | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | 195459 | 2020-03-26 20:42:14.168898 | 2020-03-26 20:42:14.168898 |
| 434 | 21868 | accepted\_answer\_post\_id | 159024 | 2019-09-22 10:09:09.671605 | 2019-09-22 10:09:09.671605 |
I need to tell you that I suck at sql queries, especially via command lines. I don’t really trust myself to delete these lines via terminal.
But anyway, what route do you recommand for me to fix this? A query (what type of querie?) ? A script, or something can be done in the forum directly?
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2025, 7:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-solved-solved-topics-violates-not-null-constraint-during-rebuild/391813/2 "2025-12-20T19:57:11Z")
> [@Steven](#):
>
> the owner of the forum could probably do without this plugin
Except it’s been moved to core.
The ones where the post\_id is Newline are the issue. You should just delete those records from the database (it might be possible from rails). You can probably get [Ask.discourse.com](http://Ask.discourse.com) to tell you how.
---
### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2025, 8:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-solved-solved-topics-violates-not-null-constraint-during-rebuild/391813/3 "2025-12-20T20:55:41Z")
> [@Steven](#):
>
> or something can be done in the forum directly?
As a possible punt… I believe deleting a topic now automatically removes the solution and deletes the record in `discourse_solved_solved_topics`. I’m not 100% that this could work without the solved plugin installed, but it could be worth a check?
If you run a query in [data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) to grab them all, delete one, and run the query again to see if it’s disappeared, that could be an easy way to see if it could work?
Restoring the topic doesn’t restore the record in `discourse_solved_solved_topics`, so (potentially 🙂) a quick ‘delete and restore’ could clear them out. 🤞
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2025, 9:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-solved-solved-topics-violates-not-null-constraint-during-rebuild/391813/4 "2025-12-20T21:59:17Z")
> [@JammyDodger](#):
>
> I’m not 100% that this could work without the solved plugin installed, but it could be worth a check?
I’m fairly certain that it won’t since the code that does that is in the plugin.
I’m also fairly certain that the database is broken. It’s not supposed to have newlines in that value column. Deleting them from the database is what needs to happen. If you don’t, you’ll forget when you try to move to a new server and restore this database (and it’ll have solved because it’s in core) and you’ll have to figure this out all over again.
---
### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2025, 10:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-solved-solved-topics-violates-not-null-constraint-during-rebuild/391813/5 "2025-12-20T22:09:29Z")
Ah, thought it might be a longshot. I wasn’t sure where the cleanup was kept. 🙂
Looks like Alexander had a similar issue and went the DB route: [Error upgrading to latest Discourse -- solved - #4 by Alexander\_Wright](https://meta.discourse.org/t/error-upgrading-to-latest-discourse-solved/362519/4)
---
### Author:  [@Steven](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Steven)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2025, 7:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-solved-solved-topics-violates-not-null-constraint-during-rebuild/391813/6 "2025-12-21T07:03:12Z")
Thanks @pfaffman and @JammyDodger, I’ll dig in the db to try to fix this.
With [data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true), I have the list of problematic rows, we can see this is very limited in time, maybe a bit of an issue with the plugin during that time?
I’ve seen this commit that tried to fix a similar issue?
>
>
> We are seeing some errors when migrating and adding indexes on \`answer\_post\_id\`.…
>
> \`\`\`
> \#\
> \`\`\`
>
> This PR modifies the earlier migration, and also adds one before the addition of indexes to remove duplicates.
Interesting anyway. I’ll try to fix this, I’ll take my time since it’s very sensible
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2025, 11:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-solved-solved-topics-violates-not-null-constraint-during-rebuild/391813/7 "2025-12-21T11:49:18Z")
It should be pretty easy to get [Ask.discourse.com](http://Ask.discourse.com) to give you a query that will find all of the ones you want to delete and (after you’ve seen that part of the query works) delete them all.
---
### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2025, 12:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-solved-solved-topics-violates-not-null-constraint-during-rebuild/391813/8 "2025-12-21T12:56:49Z")
Having the system user as the one who marked solved is a bit unusual in there too. I think that was also the same for Alexander, looking at his error.
With two similar reports, do you think this could be a case of the migration missing an edge case, @pfaffman?
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2025, 1:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-solved-solved-topics-violates-not-null-constraint-during-rebuild/391813/9 "2025-12-21T13:56:38Z")
> [@JammyDodger](#):
>
> do you think this could be a case of the migration missing an edge case, @pfaffman?
I wouldn’t hazard a guess.
---
### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2025, 2:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-solved-solved-topics-violates-not-null-constraint-during-rebuild/391813/10 "2025-12-21T14:19:31Z")
I suppose two in eight months isn’t exactly a flood, so perhaps not enough to dig deeper. 🙂
> [@Steven](#):
>
> we can see this is very limited in time, maybe a bit of an issue with the plugin during that time?
It looks like the other report has a similar date range too:
> [@Error upgrading to latest Discourse -- solved](https://meta.discourse.org/t/error-upgrading-to-latest-discourse-solved/362519/3):
>
> `DETAIL: Failing row contains (1152, 16673, null, -1, null, 2021-05-10 18:32:53.008822, 2021-05-10 18:32:53.008822)`
Not hugely useful to know for the task in hand, but possibly helpful if more reports come in.