# Fix the psql FATAL Database Does Not Exist Error

> Resolve the psql 'FATAL: database does not exist' error by switching to the postgres user for initial setup and specifying the database with the -d flag

**URL:** https://sentry.io/answers/user-name-database-doesnt-exist/

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## The Problem

When getting started with Postgres, you might come across this error: `psql: FATAL: database "root" does not exist` or `psql: FATAL: database "<your user name>" does not exist`. This can happen particularly when running `psql` with no arguments from your command line. The issue is that if you specify no arguments, psql assumes you want to access a database with the same name as your user name.

## The Solution

If you are just setting up Postgres for the first time, you will need to use the `postgres` user to configure your database initially. Either do `su - postgres` in your command line to switch to that user, or log in as the postgres user on your computer.

Once you have the database set up, you can use the `-d` option to the `psql` command or append the database name after all the other `psql` options, e.g. `psql -H myhost database`.

### Further Reading

If you're looking to get a deeper understanding of how application monitoring works, take a look at the following articles:

- [Database Performance Monitoring in Node](https://blog.sentry.io/support-for-database-performance-monitoring-in-node/)
- [How to mutate data in a system designed for immutable data](https://blog.sentry.io/how-to-mutate-data-in-a-system-designed-for-immutable-data/)
- [Database integrations for Performance Monitoring in Node (docs)](https://docs.sentry.io/platforms/javascript/tracing/)

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*Source: [sentry.io/answers/user-name-database-doesnt-exist/](https://sentry.io/answers/user-name-database-doesnt-exist/)*