34.16. The Password File error re windows pgpass.conf location

PG Doc comments form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:

On this page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/libpq-pgpass.html
It incorrectly states:
%APPDATA%\postgresql\pgpass.conf
In reality this files needs to be placed here on a Windows system:
%APPDATA%\Roaming\postgresql\pgpass.conf
^^^^^^^^

Hmm ... that text has been like that since 2005, and you're the first
to report it's wrong. I suspect it's not wrong for the majority of
users, and instead there's something odd about your configuration.
I don't know enough about Windows to guess at exactly what.

regards, tom lane

Hi,

On Mon, Aug 08, 2022 at 05:45:38PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

PG Doc comments form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:

On this page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/libpq-pgpass.html
It incorrectly states:
%APPDATA%\postgresql\pgpass.conf
In reality this files needs to be placed here on a Windows system:
%APPDATA%\Roaming\postgresql\pgpass.conf
^^^^^^^^

Hmm ... that text has been like that since 2005, and you're the first
to report it's wrong. I suspect it's not wrong for the majority of
users, and instead there's something odd about your configuration.
I don't know enough about Windows to guess at exactly what.

The code uses "CSIDL_APPDATA" for the root directory containing
postgresql/pgpass.conf. According to
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/usmt/usmt-recognized-environment-variables,
it's the same as APPDATA, and the "Roaming" part should be part of it:

CSIDL_APPDATA
The file-system directory that serves as a common repository for
application-specific data. A typical path is C:\Documents and
Settings\username\Application Data or C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming.

So it doesn't look like anything changed there recently, and maybe the OP did
some unusual configuration there.