28P01FATALTier 2 — Caution✅ HIGH confidence

invalid password

Category: Invalid Authorization SpecificationVersions: All Postgres versions

What this means

SQLSTATE 28P01 is a Postgres-specific error raised when password authentication fails — the supplied password does not match the stored credential for the connecting role. It is the authentication-phase counterpart to 28000.

Why it happens

1Incorrect password supplied in the connection string
2Password changed on the server but not updated in the application configuration
3Connecting with the wrong username (where passwords differ by role)

How to reproduce

Connection attempt with a wrong password.

trigger — this will ERROR

-- psql connection with wrong password:
-- psql -U myapp -d mydb -W

FATAL: password authentication failed for user "myapp"

Fix 1: Verify and update the password in the application configuration

When the application receives 28P01.

fix

-- Rotate the password if it was changed:
ALTER ROLE myapp PASSWORD 'new_secure_password';

Why this works

Update the connection string in the application with the correct current password, then restart the application to reload the credentials.

Fix 2: Use a secrets manager to avoid hardcoded credentials

In production environments.

fix

Why this works

Store database credentials in a secrets manager (AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault, etc.) and have the application fetch them at runtime to avoid stale password issues.

What not to do

✗

Log the password for debugging 28P01

Why it's wrong: Logging passwords creates a security vulnerability.

Sources

📚 Official docs: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/errcodes-appendix.html

🔧 Source ref: Class 28 — Invalid Authorization Specification (Postgres-specific)

Confidence assessment

✅ HIGH confidence

Postgres-specific. Stable across all versions.