Check database consistency

You can use the neo4j-admin database check command to check the consistency of a database, a dump, or a full recovered backup. The neo4j-admin tool is located in the /bin directory.

Syntax

The neo4j-admin database check command has the following syntax:

neo4j-admin database check [-h] [--expand-commands] [--force] [--verbose]
                           [--check-counts[=true|false]] [--check-graph[=true|false]]
                           [--check-indexes[=true|false]] [--check-property-owners[=true|false]]
                           [--additional-config=<file>] [--max-off-heap-memory=<size>]
                           [--report-path=<path>] [--threads=<number of threads>]
                           [[--from-path-data=<path> --from-path-txn=<path>] | [--from-path=<path> [--temp-path=<path>]]]
                           <database>

Description

This command allows for checking the consistency of a database, a dump, or a full backup. It cannot be used with a database that is currently in use.

Some checks can be quite expensive, so it may be useful to turn some of them off for very large databases. Increasing the heap size might be a good idea.

It is not recommended to use an NFS to check the consistency of a database, a dump, or a full backup as this slows the process down significantly.

Parameters

Table 1. neo4j-admin database check parameters
Parameter Description

<database>

Name of the database to check.

Options

The neo4j-admin database check command has the following options:

Table 2. neo4j-admin database check options
Option Description Default

--verbose

Enable verbose output.

-h, --help

Show this help message and exit.

--expand-commands

Allow command expansion in config value evaluation.

--additional-config=<file>[1]

Configuration file with additional configuration.

--force

Force a consistency check to be run, despite resources, and may run a more thorough check.

--check-indexes[=true|false]

Perform consistency checks on indexes.

true

--check-graph[=true|false]

Perform consistency checks between nodes, relationships, properties, types, and tokens.

true

--check-counts[=true|false]

Perform consistency checks on the counts. Requires <check-graph>, and may implicitly enable <check-graph> if it were not explicitly disabled.

<check-graph>

--check-property-owners[=true|false]

Perform consistency checks on the ownership of properties. Requires <check-graph>, and may implicitly enable <check-graph> if it were not explicitly disabled.

false

--report-path=<path>

Path to where a consistency report will be written. Interpreted as a directory, unless it has an extension of .report.

.

--max-off-heap-memory=<size>

Maximum off-heap memory that the command can use for page cache and various caching data structures to improve performance. Use this option to tune the command memory usage; the command does not use the server.memory.pagecache.size configuration setting for this purpose. Values can be plain numbers, such as 10000000, or, for example, 20G for 20 gigabytes, or 70%, which will amount to 70% of currently free memory on the machine.

90%

--threads=<number of threads>

Number of threads used to check the consistency.

The number of CPUs on the machine.

--from-path-data=<path>

Path to the databases directory, containing the database directory to source from.

server.directories.data/databases

--from-path-txn=<path>

Path to the transactions directory, containing the transaction directory for the database to source from.

server.directories.transaction.logs.root

--from-path=<path>

Changed in 2025.09 Path to a backup file or a directory containing dump/backup artifacts. If the path is to a single file, that artifact is selected and checked for consistency. If a directory is provided, the tool selects the most recent backup chain (based on transaction IDs) within it and checks that chain for consistency.

--temp-path=<path>

Path to directory to be used as a staging area to extract dump/backup artifacts, if needed.

<from-path>
1. See neo4j-admin and neo4j tools → Configuration for details.

The --from-path=<path> option can also check database artifacts in AWS S3 buckets and Google Cloud storage buckets. For more information, see Check the consistency of a backup/dump stored in a cloud storage.

Output

If the consistency checker does not find errors, it exits cleanly and does not produce a report. If the consistency checker finds errors, it exits with an exit code other than 0 and writes a report file with a name in the format inconsistencies-YYYY-MM-DD.HH24.MI.SS.report. The location of the report file is the current working directory, or as specified by the parameter report-path.

Examples

The following are examples of how to check the consistency of a database, a dump, or a backup.

neo4j-admin database check cannot be applied to Composite databases. It must be run directly on the databases that are associated with that Composite database.

Check the consistency of a local database

Note that the database must be stopped first.

bin/neo4j-admin database check neo4j

The output will look similar to the following:

Running consistency check with max off-heap:618.6MiB
  Store size:160.0KiB
  Allocated page cache:160.0KiB
  Off-heap memory for caching:618.5MiB
ID Generator consistency check
....................  10%
....................  20%
....................  30%
....................  40%
....................  50%
....................  60%
....................  70%
....................  80%
....................  90%
.................... 100%
Index structure consistency check
....................  10%
....................  20%
....................  30%
....................  40%
....................  50%
....................  60%
....................  70%
....................  80%
....................  90%
.................... 100%
Consistency check
....................  10%
....................  20%
....................  30%
....................  40%
....................  50%
....................  60%
....................  70%
....................  80%
....................  90%
.................... 100%

Check the consistency of a backup/dump

Note that consistency check is not supported for differential backups or unrecovered full backups. The backup chain must be aggregated into a full recovered backup artifact before running consistency check.

See Aggregate a database backup chain for more details.

Run with the --from-path option to check the consistency of a backup or a dump.
Starting with Neo4j 2025.09, the option accepts a path to a specific backup or dump file you want to be checked for consistency. If only the directory is provided, the most recent backup chain (based on transaction IDs) within that directory will be checked.

bin/neo4j-admin database check --from-path=<path-to-backup-or-dump> neo4j

Check the consistency of a backup/dump stored in a cloud storage

The following examples show how to check the consistency of a full backup or a dump stored in a cloud storage bucket using the --from-path option.

Neo4j uses the AWS SDK v2 to call the APIs on AWS using AWS URLs. Alternatively, you can override the endpoints so that the AWS SDK can communicate with alternative storage systems, such as Ceph, Minio, or LocalStack, using the system variables aws.endpointUrls3, aws.endpointUrlS3, or aws.endpointUrl, or the environments variables AWS_ENDPOINT_URL_S3 or AWS_ENDPOINT_URL.

  1. Install the AWS CLI by following the instructions in the AWS official documentation — Install the AWS CLI version 2.

  2. Create an S3 bucket and a directory to store the backup files using the AWS CLI:

    aws s3 mb --region=us-east-1 s3://myBucket
aws s3api put-object --bucket myBucket --key myDirectory/

    For more information on how to create a bucket and use the AWS CLI, see the AWS official documentation — Use Amazon S3 with the AWS CLI and Use high-level (s3) commands with the AWS CLI.

  3. Verify that the ~/.aws/config file is correct by running the following command:

    cat ~/.aws/config

    The output should look like this:

    [default]
region=us-east-1

  4. Configure the access to your AWS S3 bucket by setting the aws_access_key_id and aws_secret_access_key in the ~/.aws/credentials file and, if needed, using a bucket policy. For example:

    1. Use aws configure set aws_access_key_id aws_secret_access_key command to set your IAM credentials from AWS and verify that the ~/.aws/credentials is correct:

      cat ~/.aws/credentials

      The output should look like this:

      [default]
aws_access_key_id=this.is.secret
aws_secret_access_key=this.is.super.secret

    2. Additionally, you can use a resource-based policy to grant access permissions to your S3 bucket and the objects in it. Create a policy document with the following content and attach it to the bucket. Note that both resource entries are important to be able to download and upload files.

      {
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Id": "Neo4jBackupAggregatePolicy",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "Neo4jBackupAggregateStatement",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:ListBucket",
                "s3:GetObject",
                "s3:PutObject",
                "s3:DeleteObject"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:s3:::myBucket/*",
                "arn:aws:s3:::myBucket"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

  5. Run the bin/neo4j-admin database check command to check the consistency of your database located in your AWS S3 storage bucket. The example assumes that you have backup or dump artifacts located in the myBucket/myDirectory folder in your bucket.

    bin/neo4j-admin database check mydatabase --from-path=s3://myBucket/myDirectory/

  1. Ensure you have a Google account and a project created in the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

    1. Install the gcloud CLI by following the instructions in the Google official documentation — Install the gcloud CLI.

    2. Create a service account and a service account key using Google official documentation — Create service accounts and Creating and managing service account keys.

    3. Download the JSON key file for the service account.

    4. Set the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS and GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT environment variables to the path of the JSON key file and the project ID, respectively:

      export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="/path/to/keyfile.json"
export GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=YOUR_PROJECT_ID

    5. Authenticate the gcloud CLI with the e-mail address of the service account you have created, the path to the JSON key file, and the project ID:

      gcloud auth activate-service-account [email protected] --key-file=$GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS --project=$GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT

      For more information, see the Google official documentation — gcloud auth activate-service-account.

    6. Create a bucket in the Google Cloud Storage using Google official documentation — Create buckets.

    7. Verify that the bucket is created by running the following command:

      gcloud storage ls

      The output should list the created bucket.

  2. Run the bin/neo4j-admin database check command to check the consistency of your database located in your Google storage bucket. The example assumes that you have backup or dump artifacts located in the myBucket/myDirectory folder in your bucket.

    bin/neo4j-admin database check mydatabase --from-path=gs://myBucket/myDirectory/

  1. Ensure you have an Azure account, an Azure storage account, and a blob container.

    1. You can create a storage account using the Azure portal.
      For more information, see the Azure official documentation on Create a storage account.

    2. Create a blob container in the Azure portal.
      For more information, see the Azure official documentation on Quickstart: Upload, download, and list blobs with the Azure portal.

  2. Install the Azure CLI by following the instructions in the Azure official documentation — Azure official documentation.

  3. Authenticate the neo4j or neo4j-admin process against Azure using the default Azure credentials.
    See the Azure official documentation on default Azure credentials for more information.

    az login

    Then you should be ready to use Azure URLs in either neo4j or neo4j-admin.

  4. To validate that you have access to the container with your login credentials, run the following commands:

    # Upload a file:
az storage blob upload --file someLocalFile  --account-name accountName - --container someContainer --name remoteFileName  --auth-mode login

# Download the file
az storage blob download  --account-name accountName --container someContainer --name remoteFileName --file downloadedFile --auth-mode login

# List container files
az storage blob list  --account-name someContainer --container someContainer  --auth-mode login

  5. Run the bin/neo4j-admin database check command to check the consistency of your database located in your Azure blob storage container. The example assumes that you have backup or dump artifacts located in the myStorageAccount/myContainer/myDirectory folder in Azure.

    bin/neo4j-admin database check mydatabase --from-path=azb://myStorageAccount/myContainer/myDirectory/

Glossary

allocator

A component in the cluster that allocates databases to servers according to the topology constraints specified and an allocation strategy.

asynchronous replication

Asynchronous replication is used by secondary copies to poll for new transactions, which means they cannot be guaranteed to have received the most recent transactions. This enables efficient scale-out of read-performance.

Aura instance

A fully-managed DBMS represented by a single instance ID, that is running in the Neo4j Aura cloud.

auto-commit transaction

An automatically committed transaction that contains a single query.

Bolt protocol

Bolt is a protocol used for interaction between Neo4j instances and drivers.

bookmark

A marker the client can request from the cluster to ensure that it is able to read its own writes so that the application’s state is consistent and only databases that have a copy of the bookmark are permitted to respond.

category (Bloom)

A category is based on a node label and is defined in a Perspective as a way of visually distinguishing nodes with the same label(s).

causal consistency

All servers in a cluster agree on the order in which transactions take place. The position of a server on the causal chain can be guaranteed using a bookmark.

cluster

A Neo4j DBMS that spans multiple servers working together to increase fault tolerance and/or read scalability. Databases on a cluster may be configured to replicate across servers in the cluster thus achieving read scalability or high availability.

client application

Software that interacts with a Neo4j server.

commit

A commit is the successful completion of a transaction, which ensures durability of any changes made. For more details, visit Operations Manual → Transaction management.

composite database

Composite databases are the means to access partitioned graph data with a single Cypher query.

constraint

Constraints are sets of data modeling rules that ensure the data is consistent and reliable.

Cypher®

Neo4j’s graph query language.

data model

A data model defines how information is organized in a database. A good data model will make querying and understanding your data easier. In Neo4j, the data models have a graph structure.

database

A database is a container used by the DBMS to manage and store graph data. The physical structure of data is controlled by the database.

database vs graph

Databases are the physical containers of graph data. Graphs are the logical structure of data in Neo4j.

Database Management System

Database Management System, or DBMS, capable of managing multiple databases. A DBMS may run on a single server, or span several servers configured as a cluster.

database schema

The prescribed property existence and datatypes for nodes and relationships.

deallocate

An act of removing a database from a server or a server from a cluster without loss of data or reduced fault tolerance.

degree (of a node)

The number of relationships of a specific node; loops are counted twice.

disaster recovery

A manual intervention to restore availability of a cluster, or databases within a cluster.

driver

A software library that provides access to Neo4j from a particular programming language.

election

In the event that the Raft leader becomes unresponsive, followers automatically trigger an election and vote for a new leader.

entity

A node or a relationship.

expression (Cypher)

A component of a Cypher query which produces values. It may be used in projections, as a predicate, or when setting properties on graph elements.

fabric

Fabric is the architectural design of a unified system that provides a single access point to local or distributed graph data.

fault tolerance

A guarantee that a cluster can maintain a database’s persistence and availability in the event of one or more servers failing.

follower

A primary copy of a database acting as a follower, receives and acknowledges synchronous writes from the leader.

Generative AI (GenAI)

A type of artificial intelligence (AI) system that generates text, images, or other media in response to prompts.

graph

A logical representation of a set of nodes where some pairs are connected by relationships.

index

Data structure that improves read performance of a database.

knowledge graph

A specific type of graph that has an organizing principle so that a user (or a computer system) can reason about the underlying data. The organizing principle provides an additional layer of structure that adds context to support knowledge discovery.

label

Marks a node as a member of a named and indexed subset. A node may be assigned zero or more labels.

leader

A single primary copy of a database is designated as the leader. It receives all write transactions from clients and replicates writes synchronously to followers and asynchronously to secondary copies of the database.

main database

In terms of Neo4j Enterprise Studio, the database(s) containing the user’s data. Can exist in the same Neo4j deployment as the tool asset database.

motif

A description of a specific pattern within a graph.

node

A node represents an entity or discrete object in your graph data model. Nodes can be connected by relationships, hold data in properties, and are classified by labels.

operator

A symbol representing a mathematical or logical operation.

parameter

Named value provided when running a Cypher statement.

path

A sequence of nodes and the relationships connecting them, that does not contain duplicate relationships. Several paths can match a pattern.

pattern

A specific arrangement of nodes and relationships that can be matched in a graph. A pattern follows a motif.

perspective (Bloom)

A Perspective defines a certain business view or domain that can be found in the target Neo4j graph. A single Neo4j graph can be viewed through different Perspectives, each tailored for a different business purpose.

primary

A copy of the database that is able to process write transactions and is eligible to be elected as a leader. It participates in fault tolerant writes as it is part of the majority required to acknowledge and commit write transactions.

primary vs secondary

In a cluster, databases can operate in either primary or secondary mode. Primary databases are able to process write and read transactions, ensuring fault tolerance. Secondary databases are replicated asynchronously from primaries, and their main purpose is to provide read scaling within the cluster.

project (Aura)

An isolated environment in the unified Aura console that contains its own database instances, configurations, and resources. Preceded by tenant in the classic Aura console.

property

Properties are key-value pairs that are used for storing data on nodes and relationships.

query (Cypher)

A statement that retrieves or writes information to a database.

Raft group

A group of servers that are participating in hosting a particular database in primary mode.

Raft group member

A server that is participating in a Raft group. A server can be a member of one or more groups.

Raft log

A shared log between all Raft group members that is guaranteed to be consistently updated and viewed by those members. The log contains both database data and operational state of the Raft group.

Raft protocol

The networking mechanism that enables a database to replicate its data across multiple servers to give high availability for accessing the data and high durability to the data stored.

read scaling

Distributing query load by creating additional database copies hosted in secondary mode (read-only).

relationship

A relationship represents a connection between nodes in your graph data model. Relationships connect a source node to a target node, hold data in properties, and are classified by type.

secondary

An asynchronously replicated copy of the database that provides read scaling within the cluster.

seed

A seed is a database dump or a full backup used to create a database on a cluster. This is sometimes called seeding.

server

A physical machine, a virtual machine, or a container running an instance of Neo4j. Servers can be standalone or part of a cluster.

session

A causally linked sequence of transactions.

session consistency

An alternative name for Neo4j’s causal consistency.

standalone

A single server running Neo4j and not part of a cluster.

synchronous replication

Synchronous replication requires the leader primary to replicate a transaction and block the commit until a quorum of the follower primaries acknowledges that the transaction is successfully replicated. Once the transaction is replicated, the commit is allowed to proceed. This ensures data durability and consistency within the cluster.

system database

A database used by Neo4j to store system information.

tenant (Aura)

An isolated environment in the classic Aura console that contains its own database instances, configurations, and resources. Replaced by project in the unified Aura console.

tool asset database

In terms of Neo4j Enterprise Studio, the database where tools' assets are stored. This can be in the same Neo4j deployment as the main database(s) or in a separate deployment.

topology

A configuration that describes how the copies of a database should be spread across the servers in a cluster, see primary mode and secondary mode.

transaction

A transaction comprises a unit of work performed against a database. It is treated in a coherent and reliable way, independent of other transactions. Transactions comply with the ACID consistency model (atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable).