An error occurred while installing pg (0.17.1), and Bundler cannot continue

Some kind of error resported here Installing PG gem on OS X - failure to build native extension

To install dependencies on Ubuntu try this:

sudo apt-get install libpq-dev

and this

gem install pg

app root:

  1. brew update
  2. brew install postgres
  3. gem install pg -- --with-pg-config=/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.3.4/bin/pg_config
  4. bundle install
  5. ln -sfv /usr/local/opt/postgresql/*.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents
  6. launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist
  7. createuser -s -r postgres
  8. rake db:create:all
  9. rake db:migrate
  10. rails s

NOTE: replace the version number in step 3 if needed.


I'm on a Mac running Mavericks. My solution was to install Postgres.

And then in terminal install using homebrew with the configuration:

gem install pg -- --with-pg-config=/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/latest/bin/pg_config

Note: This answer has been edited to use the latest symlink that is currently included in shipping versions of the Postgres app.

Previous versions suggested:

gem install pg -- --with-pg-config=/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.4/bin/pg_config

Previously working answer with older version

I installed under mac OSX Mavericks, having the postgres app (Version 9.2.2.0 ) from www.postgresapp.com installed. The underlying problem was simpy that the since postgres was installed via the app, the configuration file resides on a location which is not the default one when installing it without postgressapp. so we need to tell gem where to find this file by:

gem install pg -- --with-pg-config=/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/pg_config

Hope it helps