For those that run Element server and run postgresql version older than 13 will need to update their postgresql major version.
I found these instructions by ‘maxkratz’ on their github page which worked perfectly for me to go from 11 to 16.
Hopefully this helps someone!
For minor version upgrades, the database remains binary compatible. Nothing to do.
The dump/restore required during major upgrades allows format changes which enable new features and performance improvements without dragging around cruft forever to stay backwards compatible.
For professionals running PostgreSQL clusters in production there is a way to cycle in the new server version with zero user-visible downtime.
It’s just weird that it doesn’t do the dump-restore automatically when it detects data from an old version.
I think there is a catch-22.
pg_dump needs to connect to a running PostgreSQL instance.
But if you upgrade the binaries and try to start up, you can’t because the old data format doesn’t work. Because you can’t start up, pg_dump can’t connect.