# Need help please! Restore forum from DB backup
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-help-please-restore-forum-from-db-backup/254955
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [February 13, 2023, 7:50am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-help-please-restore-forum-from-db-backup/254955 "2023-02-13T07:50:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nahimov](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nahimov)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2023, 7:50am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-help-please-restore-forum-from-db-backup/254955/1 "2023-02-13T07:50:44Z")
As a result of a cloud provider failure, we lost our production forum. There are only Postgres database backups.
Can you tell me what is the correct sequence of actions when restoring from a database backup? And in general, is it possible?
Is there any table inside the database indicating the version of the forum?
Thank you very much in advance!
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2023, 10:35am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-help-please-restore-forum-from-db-backup/254955/2 "2023-02-13T10:35:05Z")
Have you looked at the #sysadmin documentation on this?
> [@Manually create and restore Discourse backups](https://meta.discourse.org/t/manually-create-and-restore-discourse-backups/18273):
>
> As discussed [below](https://meta.discourse.org/t/advanced-manual-method-of-manually-creating-and-restoring-discourse-backups/18273/7), a warning for newbies: this is an advanced method! there is an automated, web UI way to restore from backups at /admin/backups which is so much easier. with the method below, no automatic backup is kept of the /var/discourse/containers/app.yml file which contains essential SMTP credentials and SSL customizations. Keep a copy of this offsite whenever you change it. If you are using digital ocean, keep frequent snapshots of your droplets - preferably before each time you run .…
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### Author:  [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2023, 10:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-help-please-restore-forum-from-db-backup/254955/3 "2023-02-13T10:45:59Z")
Hi @nahimov 🙂
It’s unnecessary to @mention a team member, so I’ve removed it. They often read meta anyway and will reply if they feel it’s needed.
There are always many people here, whether the team or not, willing to help.
Robert’s link is the standard procedure to follow when restoring the forum. Unless your forum hasn’t been updated for a **long** time (which is always a bad thing), you should be able to restore your backup on the last Discourse version without issues.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2023, 3:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-help-please-restore-forum-from-db-backup/254955/4 "2023-02-13T15:08:42Z")
> [@nahimov](#):
>
> As a result of a cloud provider failure, we lost our production forum. There are only Postgres database backups.
Was it a [standard install](https://meta.discourse.org/t/142537?silent=true)?
Where are the backups? Are they backups created by Discourse or backups of just postgres taken some other way?
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### Author:  [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2025, 5:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/need-help-please-restore-forum-from-db-backup/254955/5 "2025-10-10T17:20:45Z")