"ORDER BY position ... is not in select list"

You sorted (or grouped) by a column number that doesn't exist in the SELECT list — usually because a column got added or removed and a positional reference further down wasn't updated.

• PostgreSQL: ERROR: ORDER BY position 5 is not in select list
• SQL Server: The ORDER BY position number 5 is out of range in the select list which is only 2 items.
• SQLite: 1st ORDER BY term out of range - should be between 1 and 2
• MySQL raises an equivalent "unknown column" style error for the same mistake — the exact wording varies by version, but the cause and fix below are identical.

ORDER BY (and GROUP BY) accept a plain integer as shorthand for "the Nth column in the SELECT list" — ORDER BY 2 instead of repeating the actual expression. It's valid, common shorthand right up until the SELECT list changes shape and the number no longer points at anything:

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Only two columns are selected — there is no 5th.

Why this happens in practice

Almost never because someone typed 5 by hand for a 2-column query — it's because the query used to have five columns (or five expressions, including ones later merged or removed), a column got dropped from the SELECT list during a later edit, and the positional reference at the bottom was never updated to match:

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ORDER BY 2 now correctly means "sort by name," the 2nd column — but if someone reorders the SELECT list later without touching this line, it will silently start sorting by a different column instead of erroring, since the position is still technically in range. That's the sharper version of this trap: an out-of-range position is at least loud about it; an in-range-but-now-wrong position isn't.

The same applies to GROUP BY:

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The fix

Prefer the actual column name or expression over a position, especially in any query you expect to be edited later — it survives a reordered SELECT list instead of silently pointing at the wrong thing:

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Positional references still have a legitimate use — an ORDER BY on a computed expression too long or awkward to repeat verbatim — but for a plain column reference, naming it costs nothing and removes this failure mode entirely.