Trouble using pg_restore or psql or pgAdmin4 to restore a postgres db backup

This is low stakes and just a practice run for when I urgently need to do it, and also to confirm that pg_dump worked to satisfaction.

I am trying to use psql or pg_restore to restore my copy of a Postgres database to a new database. I am on Ubuntu 22.04.

As my usual user, rlm, at ~ I can type dir and get, among other files, my apgym.sql output from pg_dump.

So I type pg_restore -d testRestore -U postgres apgym.sql and I get: pg_restore: error: input file appears to be a text format dump. Please use psql.

It's like ok, I'll use psql. I type it and I get psql: error: connection to server on socket "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432" failed: FATAL: database "rlm" does not exist I don't understand the error message, but I'll try again as the Postgres user. So I type

sudo su postgres and become the postgres user. I enter psql -d testRestore -f apgym.sql in the same directory as my apgym.sql file and I get:

could not change directory to "/home/rlm": Permission denied
psql: error: apgym.sql: No such file or directory

I can't use pgAdmin to restore from the backup either, it says the status is "Failed" in 0.02 seconds.

How can I restore my backed up postgres db? I need to be able to do this in case my data is ruined and I want to go back. Please don't suggest alternatives: I want to do it this way.

In case it helps readers or anyone looking to create their own pg_dump output in the future, I created the backup with the command pg_dump -h localhost -U postgres -W apGymPostgres > apgym.sql

The solution for me was to go around this problem. I failed to make psql or pg_restore restore the backup I had created. Supposedly because I created a plain text pg_dump file, I needed to use psql. But I couldn't make psql work.

The success started when I discovered a tutorial saying that, if I use a tar dump file, then I can use pg_restore. I was able to make a tar dump file using pgAdmin and then restore similarly using pgAdmin.

So its not a solution to making a plain text pg dump work, but it goes around it.