diff --git a/tools/travis/production-helper b/tools/travis/production-helper
index 9eeb329fd0..c691531f70 100755
--- a/tools/travis/production-helper
+++ b/tools/travis/production-helper
@@ -10,6 +10,14 @@ tar -xf zulip-server-travis.tar.gz
 mv zulip-server-travis /root/zulip
 
 export APT_OPTIONS="-o Dpkg::Options::=--force-confdef -o Dpkg::Options::=--force-confold"
+
+# Make sure we've done an apt upgrade and then stop postgres to
+# workaround problems with Travis CI having multiple postgres versions
+# installed on the system and 9.1 starting up and conflicting with
+# running 9.3 later.
+apt-get upgrade -y $APT_OPTIONS
+service postgresql stop
+# Install Zulip
 /root/zulip/scripts/setup/install
 
 cat >>/etc/zulip/settings.py <<EOF