"SASL: SCRAM-SERVER-FIRST-MESSAGE: client password must be a string" in Strapi

Strapi’s “SASL: SCRAM-SERVER-FIRST-MESSAGE: client password must be a string” startup error from the PostgreSQL Node driver usually indicates that the database password is missing or not a string, most often because `DATABASE_PASSWORD` resolves to `undefined`, rather than a SASL, PostgreSQL authentication, or network problem. The issue can be quickly verified by logging only the password variable’s type and whether it is set, then tracing configuration sources such as a misplaced or incorrectly named `.env` file, absent deployment environment variables, a PostgreSQL role without a password, an overriding or malformed `DATABASE_URL`, use of a typed helper such as `env.int()` for the password, or an environment-specific database configuration that replaces the base settings. The recommended prevention measures are to validate required variables early with a clear application-level error and maintain a committed `.env.example` file containing all expected keys. It also distinguishes this error from related failures, noting that incorrect passwords, nonexistent roles or databases, refused connections, connection-pool timeouts, and unloaded configuration files each produce different messages and point to separate causes.

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