Not able to install 4CAT on my MAC

[aittamz]

Hi, I hope this is the right section. After having to reset my Mac, I am no longer able to use 4CAT. I follow the entire installation procedure that I have always used via Docker, but when I try to connect to the local host and then open 4cat, nothing happens: it doesn't connect to anything.

I really don't know how to solve the problem. Please help me :)

[dale-wahl]

Can you provide some additional information. What do you see? What does Docker tell you? In Docker, the various containers have logs if you click on them. We would be most interested in 4cat_backend and 4cat_frontend. You can take screenshots if you need to.

[aittamz]

Finally. I was trying to re-install and this is the problema. Any ideas on what i have to do? Thank you!

[stijn-uva]

You may have the same issue discussed in this issue: #550

You can try following these steps to see if it fixes the issue for you: https://github.com/digitalmethodsinitiative/4cat/wiki/Upgrading-4CAT#database-versions. If not, please copy the logs of the 4cat_db container here: you can view them by opening the 'Containers' tab in Docker Desktop and clicking the container, or running the docker container logs 4cat_db command.

[aittamz]

Thank You!

i tried to modify the POSTGRES_TAG=latest, but it was already POSTGRES_TAG=17

[aittamz]

These are the 4cat_db logs:

personal

Containers
4cat_db

4cat_db
675d9db94dd3
postgres:17
STATUS
Restarting

The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "postgres".

This user must also own the server process.

The database cluster will be initialized with locale "en_US.utf8".

The default database encoding has accordingly been set to "UTF8".

The default text search configuration will be set to "english".

Data page checksums are disabled.

---

WARNING: POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD has been set to "trust". This will allow

     anyone with access to the Postgres port to access your database without

     a password, even if POSTGRES_PASSWORD is set. See PostgreSQL

     documentation about "trust":

     [https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/auth-trust.html⁠](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/auth-trust.html)

     In Docker's default configuration, this is effectively any other

     container on the same system.


     It is not recommended to use POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD=trust. Replace

     it with "-e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password" instead to set a password in

     "docker run".

---

The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "postgres".

This user must also own the server process.

The database cluster will be initialized with locale "en_US.utf8".

The default database encoding has accordingly been set to "UTF8".

The default text search configuration will be set to "english".

Data page checksums are disabled.

initdb: error: directory "/var/lib/postgresql/data" exists but is not empty

initdb: hint: If you want to create a new database system, either remove or empty the directory "/var/lib/postgresql/data" or run initdb with an argument other than "/var/lib/postgresql/data".

---

WARNING: POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD has been set to "trust". This will allow

     anyone with access to the Postgres port to access your database without

     a password, even if POSTGRES_PASSWORD is set. See PostgreSQL

     documentation about "trust":

     [https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/auth-trust.html⁠](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/auth-trust.html)

     In Docker's default configuration, this is effectively any other

     container on the same system.


     It is not recommended to use POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD=trust. Replace

[stijn-uva]

I think your 4cat_4cat_db volume which contains the 4CAT database data may have been created with PostgreSQL 18, i.e. a newer version that 4CAT does not currently support. In other words, the database container is at a different version than the database volume.

• If you do not mind losing the data currently in the database (if any), you can simply remove all 4CAT containers and volumes and re-install 4CAT from the beginning. You can delete the volume via Docker Desktop or with the command docker volume rm 4cat_4cat_db (delete the containers first). This will re-initialise the database volume with the same version as the database container.
• If you do want to keep the data, you can try setting POSTGRES_TAG=18 in .env and re-building the Docker containers per the steps in the link from my previous command.

[aittamz]

Sorry to bother you, I deleted the volume 4cat_db. recompose all the 4cat via terminal, and now it is:

[+] Running 5/5
✔ Volume 4cat_4cat_db Created 0.0s
✔ Container 4cat_db Healthy 6.1s
✔ Container 4cat_memcached Healthy 10.9s
✔ Container 4cat_backend Started 0.3s
✔ Container 4cat_frontend Started 0.7s

[aittamz]

Now it seems everything is working, also reading the log, but i still not able to connect to 4 cat.

[stijn-uva]

That's unfortunate! If you can explain how you are trying to connect to 4CAT (e.g. via what URL) and what happens if you do, it is easier for us to understand what the problem could be.