diff --git a/src/share/sql.ts b/src/share/sql.ts
index 0f39dd77d..87e9cf133 100644
--- a/src/share/sql.ts
+++ b/src/share/sql.ts
@@ -2,16 +2,21 @@
 
 import Database from "better-sqlite3";
 import dataDir from "../services/data_dir.js";
+import sql_init from "../services/sql_init.js";
 
-const dbConnection = new Database(dataDir.DOCUMENT_PATH, { readonly: true });
+let dbConnection!: Database.Database;
 
-[`exit`, `SIGINT`, `SIGUSR1`, `SIGUSR2`, `SIGTERM`].forEach(eventType => {
-    process.on(eventType, () => {
-        if (dbConnection) {
-            // closing connection is especially important to fold -wal file into the main DB file
-            // (see https://sqlite.org/tempfiles.html for details)
-            dbConnection.close();
-        }
+sql_init.dbReady.then(() => {
+    dbConnection = new Database(dataDir.DOCUMENT_PATH, { readonly: true });
+    
+    [`exit`, `SIGINT`, `SIGUSR1`, `SIGUSR2`, `SIGTERM`].forEach(eventType => {
+        process.on(eventType, () => {
+            if (dbConnection) {
+                // closing connection is especially important to fold -wal file into the main DB file
+                // (see https://sqlite.org/tempfiles.html for details)
+                dbConnection.close();
+            }
+        });
     });
 });