Backup or migration fails in Plesk: Cannot dump database content of type 'mysql'

Renan Poss Moreira

Updated January 13, 2026 19:00

Plesk for Linux kb: technical ext: migrator ABT: Group B

Applicable to:

Plesk for Linux

Symptoms

Backup fails with the following errors:

PLESK_ERROR: Error: domain "example.com"
Cannot dump database content 'db_example' of type 'mysql'
Cannot backup content of database 'db_example'. The mysqldump utility has returned '2'.
STDERR: mysqldump: Got error: 1049: Unknown database 'db_example' when selecting the database

Or

PLESK_WARN: Warning:
Deployer has been terminated by exception: Line 70 Position 4 Error: The element 'migration-dump' has invalid child element 'role'. List of possible elements expected: 'reseller-info, client-info, domain-info, server'.
Migration fails wit error:
CONFIG_TEXT: Failed to copy content of database 'db_example'
Migration tools tried to perform operation in 3 attempts: Command execution failed on the source server 'source' (203.0.113.2) with non-zero exit code.
command: MYSQL_PWD="$(cat)" mysqldump --no-defaults -h localhost -P 3306 -uadmin --quick --quote-names --add-drop-table --default-character-set=utf8 --set-charset --routines db_example > /root/plesk_migrator/plesk_migrator-gl6g31q86s77dwpr467mreyyh2uw20nn/db-dumps/db_example.sql
exit code: 2
stdout:
stderr: mysqldump: Got error: 1049: Unknown database 'db_example' when selecting the database

Database db_example does not exist on the server, however, psa database contains a record about it:

mysql> select * from data_bases where name='db_example';
+----+-----------------+-------+--------+--------------+-----------------+
| id | name            | type  | dom_id | db_server_id | default_user_id |
+----+-----------------+-------+--------+--------------+-----------------+
|  1 | db_example      | mysql |     1  |            1 |               1 |
+----+-----------------+-------+--------+--------------+-----------------+

Cause

Database was removed from the server manually, but was not removed from Plesk.

Resolution

Using Plesk GUI

Log into Plesk
Click on Remove Database for "db_example" database at Plesk > Domains > example.com > Databases.

Directly from the server

Connect to the server via SSH.
Create backup of psa database:
# plesk db dump psa > psa.sql
Remove the record about "db_example" database from psa database:
# plesk db
mysql > delete from data_bases where name='db_example';