# Unable to restore/update discourse (PG::InvalidTextRepresentation: ERROR: invalid input syntax for type integer: "\[\]")

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/unable-to-restore-update-discourse-pg-error-invalid-input-syntax-for-type-integer/229828>\
**Category:** Product Support\
**Created:** [June 13, 2022, 4:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/unable-to-restore-update-discourse-pg-error-invalid-input-syntax-for-type-integer/229828 "2022-06-13T16:41:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 12

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![david](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/david/32/157490_2.png) [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2022, 8:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/unable-to-restore-update-discourse-pg-error-invalid-input-syntax-for-type-integer/229828/12 "2022-06-13T20:10:46Z")

</div>

> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> But maybe that was the state that it was left in after all of the other ones had been deleted

Our ‘list’ settings are a thin UI over pipe-delimited strings, so in theory an empty list should be stored as an empty string. But you make a good point - maybe someone was trying to empty the list and did something like this by accident:

```plaintext
pry(main)> SiteSetting.selectable_avatars = []
=> []
pry(main)> SiteSetting.selectable_avatars
=> "[]"

```

(this is with the old format. The new format has validations to prevent this, even on the console)

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