golang-migrate/migrate · error

no database name

Error message

no database name

What it means

Sentinel error ErrNoDatabaseName defined in database/sqlserver/sqlserver.go. It is a generic guard indicating that no database name could be determined when opening the driver — typically because the connection URL had no path (e.g. sqlserver://host without a /dbname component). The same sentinel pattern exists in other drivers such as cockroachdb, where Open returns it when the parsed database name is empty. Fix by including the database name in the URL path.

Source

Thrown at database/sqlserver/sqlserver.go:29

	"strings"
	"sync/atomic"

	"github.com/Azure/go-autorest/autorest/adal"
	"github.com/golang-migrate/migrate/v4"
	"github.com/golang-migrate/migrate/v4/database"
	mssql "github.com/microsoft/go-mssqldb" // mssql support
)

func init() {
	database.Register("sqlserver", &SQLServer{})
}

// DefaultMigrationsTable is the name of the migrations table in the database
var DefaultMigrationsTable = "schema_migrations"

var (
	ErrNilConfig                 = fmt.Errorf("no config")
	ErrNoDatabaseName            = fmt.Errorf("no database name")
	ErrNoSchema                  = fmt.Errorf("no schema")
	ErrDatabaseDirty             = fmt.Errorf("database is dirty")
	ErrMultipleAuthOptionsPassed = fmt.Errorf("both password and useMsi=true were passed")
)

var lockErrorMap = map[int]string{
	-1:   "The lock request timed out.",
	-2:   "The lock request was canceled.",
	-3:   "The lock request was chosen as a deadlock victim.",
	-999: "Parameter validation or other call error.",
}

// Config for database
type Config struct {
	MigrationsTable string
	DatabaseName    string
	SchemaName      string
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 01a9643f14)

Solutions

1. Add database=<name> to the sqlserver:// URL query parameters
2. Set config.DatabaseName when calling WithInstance/WithConnection
3. Check the environment variable or secret supplying the database name is non-empty

Example fix

// before
d, err := migrate.Open("sqlserver://sa:pass@localhost:1433")
// after
d, err := migrate.Open("sqlserver://sa:pass@localhost:1433?database=mydb")

u, _ := url.Parse(dsn)
if u.Query().Get("database") == "" {
    return errors.New("sqlserver DSN must include database=<name>")
}

func hasDatabase(u *url.URL) bool { return u.Query().Get("database") != "" }

When it happens

Trigger: URL without ?database= (or InitialCatalog) and no config.DatabaseName; WithInstance with Config{DatabaseName: ""}.

Common situations: Empty/unset DATABASE_NAME env var interpolated into the connection string; switching between DSNs and URLs and losing the database segment; server connections with no default database.

Related errors

• no database name
• no config
• no schema
• database is dirty
• both password and useMsi=true were passed

AI-assisted analysis of golang-migrate/migrate@01a9643f14 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c74f51ffd7d38823. Report an issue: GitHub.