`PostGIS_Full_Version` error

[khteh]

2026-06-20T02:53:37.969082098Z   ●   2026-06-20 02:53:37.969 UTC [704] ERROR:  function postgis_full_version() does not exist at character 8
2026-06-20T02:53:37.969125484Z   ●   2026-06-20 02:53:37.969 UTC [704] HINT:  No function matches the given name and argument types. You might need to add explicit type casts.
2026-06-20T02:53:37.969132045Z   ●   2026-06-20 02:53:37.969 UTC [704] STATEMENT:  SELECT PostGIS_Full_Version();
2026-06-20T03:02:54.893858714Z   ●   2026-06-20 03:02:54.893 UTC [1502] ERROR:  function postgis_full_version() does not exist at character 8

postgres=# SELECT PostGIS_Full_Version();
ERROR:  function postgis_full_version() does not exist
LINE 1: SELECT PostGIS_Full_Version();
               ^
HINT:  No function matches the given name and argument types. You might need to add explicit type casts.

[ImreSamu]

Thanks for reporting this!

Could you please share a bit more information so we can try to reproduce the issue?

It would be very helpful to know:

• your operating system, architecture, docker version ( docker -v )
• the exact Docker image tag you are using ( postgis/postgis:18-3.6 )
• the full docker run / docker compose configuration
• the output of \dx ( Lists installed extensions )
• any relevant logs or error messages ( in the start: docker logs pg18-3.6gis )
• a minimal reproduction, if possible !
• PLEASE confirm whether you are using a fresh PostgreSQL data directory, or an existing one from an already initialised postgres:18 ?
  • This is important because the docker postgres + postgis init scripts ( create extension ... ) only run when the data directory is empty . If you switch from postgres:18 to postgis/postgis:18-3.6 while keeping an existing data volume, the PostGIS init script will not run automatically.
    In that case, you need to create the extension manually in the target database:
    • CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS postgis;
    • CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS postgis_topology;

I tried a minimal test with postgis/postgis:18-3.6 ( with empty data directory ) , and it seems to work in my environment:

# docker pull postgis/postgis:18-3.6
18-3.6: Pulling from postgis/postgis
Digest: sha256:c48eb5172cfb005ee094a522fe69f27f1ee9e184ba649fe068520a597fa30409
Status: Image is up to date for postgis/postgis:18-3.6
docker.io/postgis/postgis:18-3.6

# docker run --name pg18-3.6gis -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=gis36  -d  postgis/postgis:18-3.6
00d02875f0cad33cbf2ffb654b39ca5fadedac0bbdf4d9ef335ffae016d67449

# docker exec -ti  pg18-3.6gis psql -U postgres -c "\x" -c "SELECT PostGIS_Full_Version();"
Expanded display is on.
-[ RECORD 1 ]--------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
postgis_full_version | POSTGIS="3.6.4 94d984b" [EXTENSION] PGSQL="180" GEOS="3.13.1-CAPI-1.19.2" PROJ="9.6.0 NETWORK_ENABLED=OFF URL_ENDPOINT=https://cdn.proj.org USER_WRITABLE_DIRECTORY=/var/lib/postgresql/.local/share/proj DATABASE_PATH=/usr/share/proj/proj.db" (compiled against PROJ 9.6.0) LIBXML="2.9.14" LIBJSON="0.18" LIBPROTOBUF="1.5.1" WAGYU="0.5.0 (Internal)" TOPOLOGY

# docker exec -ti  pg18-3.6gis psql -U postgres -c "\dx"
                                                 List of installed extensions
          Name          | Version | Default version |   Schema   |                        Description                         
------------------------+---------+-----------------+------------+------------------------------------------------------------
 fuzzystrmatch          | 1.2     | 1.2             | public     | determine similarities and distance between strings
 plpgsql                | 1.0     | 1.0             | pg_catalog | PL/pgSQL procedural language
 postgis                | 3.6.4   | 3.6.4           | public     | PostGIS geometry and geography spatial types and functions
 postgis_tiger_geocoder | 3.6.4   | 3.6.4           | tiger      | PostGIS tiger geocoder and reverse geocoder
 postgis_topology       | 3.6.4   | 3.6.4           | topology   | PostGIS topology spatial types and functions
(5 rows)

example of my docker logs pg18-3.6gis:

# docker logs  pg18-3.6gis | head -n 40

initdb: warning: enabling "trust" authentication for local connections
initdb: hint: You can change this by editing pg_hba.conf or using the option -A, or --auth-local and --auth-host, the next time you run initdb.
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 enabled.

fixing permissions on existing directory /var/lib/postgresql/18/docker ... ok
creating subdirectories ... ok
selecting dynamic shared memory implementation ... posix
selecting default "max_connections" ... 100
selecting default "shared_buffers" ... 128MB
selecting default time zone ... Etc/UTC
creating configuration files ... ok
running bootstrap script ... ok
performing post-bootstrap initialization ... ok
syncing data to disk ... ok


Success. You can now start the database server using:

    pg_ctl -D /var/lib/postgresql/18/docker -l logfile start

waiting for server to start....2026-06-20 11:22:50.247 UTC [53] LOG:  starting PostgreSQL 18.4 (Debian 18.4-1.pgdg13+1) on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Debian 14.2.0-19) 14.2.0, 64-bit
2026-06-20 11:22:50.252 UTC [53] LOG:  listening on Unix socket "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432"
2026-06-20 11:22:50.275 UTC [59] LOG:  database system was shut down at 2026-06-20 11:22:49 UTC
2026-06-20 11:22:50.283 UTC [53] LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
 done
server started

/usr/local/bin/docker-entrypoint.sh: sourcing /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/10_postgis.sh
CREATE DATABASE
Loading PostGIS extensions into template_postgis
CREATE EXTENSION
CREATE EXTENSION
You are now connected to database "template_postgis" as user "postgres".
DO
Loading PostGIS extensions into postgres
2026-06-20 11:22:52.831 UTC [1] LOG:  starting PostgreSQL 18.4 (Debian 18.4-1.pgdg13+1) on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Debian 14.2.0-19) 14.2.0, 64-bit
2026-06-20 11:22:52.832 UTC [1] LOG:  listening on IPv4 address "0.0.0.0", port 5432
2026-06-20 11:22:52.832 UTC [1] LOG:  listening on IPv6 address "::", port 5432
2026-06-20 11:22:52.844 UTC [1] LOG:  listening on Unix socket "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432"
2026-06-20 11:22:52.859 UTC [81] LOG:  database system was shut down at 2026-06-20 11:22:52 UTC
2026-06-20 11:22:52.868 UTC [1] LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
2026-06-20 11:27:52.960 UTC [79] LOG:  checkpoint starting: time
2026-06-20 11:29:00.045 UTC [79] LOG:  checkpoint complete: wrote 668 buffers (4.1%), wrote 3 SLRU buffers; 0 WAL file(s) added, 0 removed, 1 recycled; write=66.939 s, sync=0.107 s, total=67.086 s; sync files=105, longest=0.007 s, average=0.002 s; distance=20326 kB, estimate=20326 kB; lsn=0/4A86F80, redo lsn=0/4A86EF0
2026-06-20 11:32:52.125 UTC [79] LOG:  checkpoint starting: time
2026-06-20 11:32:52.266 UTC [79] LOG:  checkpoint complete: wrote 1 buffers (0.0%), wrote 0 SLRU buffers; 0 WAL file(s) added, 0 removed, 0 recycled; write=0.101 s, sync=0.007 s, total=0.141 s; sync files=1, longest=0.007 s, average=0.007 s; distance=7 kB, estimate=18294 kB; lsn=0/4A88ED0, redo lsn=0/4A88E78
2026-06-20 11:37:52.311 UTC [79] LOG:  checkpoint starting: time
2026-06-20 11:37:53.365 UTC [79] LOG:  checkpoint complete: wrote 10 buffers (0.1%), wrote 0 SLRU buffers; 0 WAL file(s) added, 0 removed, 0 recycled; write=1.006 s, sync=0.016 s, total=1.054 s; sync files=9, longest=0.008 s, average=0.002 s; distance=57 kB, estimate=16470 kB; lsn=0/4A975F0, redo lsn=0/4A97598

[khteh]

https://github.com/khteh/PostgreSQL

[ImreSamu]

If you want pgvector and postgis together, my recommendation is
to build a small custom image by replacing the base image in the PostGIS Dockerfile. ( FROM ... )

• sed -i 's|FROM docker.io/postgres:18-trixie|FROM pgvector/pgvector:pg18-trixie|' Dockerfile

For example:

git clone --depth=1  https://github.com/postgis/docker-postgis
cd docker-postgis/18-3.6
sed -i 's|FROM docker.io/postgres:18-trixie|FROM pgvector/pgvector:pg18-trixie|' Dockerfile
docker build --progress=plain  -t pgvector-postgis:pg18-3.6.trixie  .
# check ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
docker images pgvector-postgis:pg18-3.6.trixie
# start service
docker stop pg18-vector-gis || true
docker rm   pg18-vector-gis || true
docker run --name pg18-vector-gis -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=gis36  -d  pgvector-postgis:pg18-3.6.trixie
# wait
docker exec    pg18-vector-gis  bash -c "while ! pg_isready --host 127.0.0.1; do sleep 1; done ;"
# check logs:
docker logs    pg18-vector-gis
# connect - test
docker exec -t pg18-vector-gis psql -U postgres -c"CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vector;" -c"\dx"
docker exec -t pg18-vector-gis psql -U postgres -c"\x" -c"select PostGIS_Full_Version();"
docker exec -t pg18-vector-gis psql -U postgres -c"select version();"

end of the log ( vector + postgis included )

....
CREATE EXTENSION
                                                 List of installed extensions
          Name          | Version | Default version |   Schema   |                        Description                         
------------------------+---------+-----------------+------------+------------------------------------------------------------
 fuzzystrmatch          | 1.2     | 1.2             | public     | determine similarities and distance between strings
 plpgsql                | 1.0     | 1.0             | pg_catalog | PL/pgSQL procedural language
 postgis                | 3.6.4   | 3.6.4           | public     | PostGIS geometry and geography spatial types and functions
 postgis_tiger_geocoder | 3.6.4   | 3.6.4           | tiger      | PostGIS tiger geocoder and reverse geocoder
 postgis_topology       | 3.6.4   | 3.6.4           | topology   | PostGIS topology spatial types and functions
 vector                 | 0.8.3   | 0.8.3           | public     | vector data type and ivfflat and hnsw access methods
(6 rows)

Expanded display is on.
-[ RECORD 1 ]--------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
postgis_full_version | POSTGIS="3.6.4 94d984b" [EXTENSION] PGSQL="180" GEOS="3.13.1-CAPI-1.19.2" PROJ="9.6.0 NETWORK_ENABLED=OFF URL_ENDPOINT=https://cdn.proj.org USER_WRITABLE_DIRECTORY=/var/lib/postgresql/.local/share/proj DATABASE_PATH=/usr/share/proj/proj.db" (compiled against PROJ 9.6.0) LIBXML="2.9.14" LIBJSON="0.18" LIBPROTOBUF="1.5.1" WAGYU="0.5.0 (Internal)" TOPOLOGY

                                                      version                                                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 PostgreSQL 18.4 (Debian 18.4-1.pgdg13+1) on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Debian 14.2.0-19) 14.2.0, 64-bit
(1 row)

[khteh]

Not sure about your Dockerfile FROM suggestion and how it would fix the problem. In my Dockerfile, I use both of them:

FROM pgvector/pgvector:pg18-trixie AS vector
FROM postgres:latest

which initializes PostGIS here: https://github.com/khteh/PostgreSQL/blob/master/docker-entrypoint.sh#L216

[ImreSamu]

which initializes PostGIS here: https://github.com/khteh/PostgreSQL/blob/master/docker-entrypoint.sh#L216

Yes, I see that your custom docker-entrypoint.sh initializes postgis there.
Could you explain why you need a custom entrypoint instead of the upstream-supported init mechanism?

My point was that a custom/forked docker-entrypoint.sh is harder to debug and support.
The upstream PostgreSQL Docker image already supports init scripts here:

• https://github.com/docker-library/docs/blob/master/postgres/README.md#initialization-scripts

Usually it is simpler to keep the upstream entrypoint unchanged
and put custom init sql/shell scripts under /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d .

Also note: init scripts only run for a fresh, empty data directory.
For an existing data directory, postgis must be created manually in the target database: CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS postgis;

[khteh]

helm uninstall doesn't delete the PVC storage of existing databases. So, I delete it manually.

postgres=# SELECT PostGIS_Full_Version();
                                                                                                                                                                                                                         postgis_full_version                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 POSTGIS="3.6.3 3d12666" [EXTENSION] PGSQL="180" GEOS="3.13.1-CAPI-1.19.2" PROJ="9.6.0 NETWORK_ENABLED=OFF URL_ENDPOINT=https://cdn.proj.org USER_WRITABLE_DIRECTORY=/var/lib/postgresql/.local/share/proj DATABASE_PATH=/usr/share/proj/proj.db" (compiled against PROJ 9.6.0) LIBXML="2.9.14" LIBJSON="0.18" LIBPROTOBUF="1.5.1" WAGYU="0.5.0 (Internal)" (core procs from "3.6.4 94d984b" need upgrade) TOPOLOGY (topology procs from "3.6.4 94d984b" need upgrade)
(1 row)
postgres=# \dx
                                                 List of installed extensions
          Name          | Version | Default version |   Schema   |                        Description                         
------------------------+---------+-----------------+------------+------------------------------------------------------------
 fuzzystrmatch          | 1.2     | 1.2             | public     | determine similarities and distance between strings
 plpgsql                | 1.0     | 1.0             | pg_catalog | PL/pgSQL procedural language
 postgis                | 3.6.4   | 3.6.4           | public     | PostGIS geometry and geography spatial types and functions
 postgis_tiger_geocoder | 3.6.4   | 3.6.4           | tiger      | PostGIS tiger geocoder and reverse geocoder
 postgis_topology       | 3.6.4   | 3.6.4           | topology   | PostGIS topology spatial types and functions
(5 rows)

[khteh]

Could you explain why you need a custom entrypoint instead of the upstream-supported init mechanism?

DB restore from pg_dump mounted as k8s ConfigMap.