🔒
Terraform state lock stuck
plan/apply blocked by DynamoDB or remote backend lock — release safely.
Reviewed: ·Tested on: Kubernetes 1.29, Terraform 1.8, Ubuntu 22.04
Symptoms
- Error: Error acquiring the state lock
- Another process is holding a lock on the state
- CI job was cancelled mid-apply
1Confirm no real apply is running
Check CI/CD and teammates before force-unlocking. A running apply must finish first.
2Inspect lock metadata
The error message includes Lock ID and who holds the lock. Note the ID for unlock.
terraform plan # re-read lock info in error output3Force unlock (after confirming safe)
terraform force-unlock <LOCK_ID>4Prevent recurrence
Use plan-only in PRs, serialize applies on main, and set CI timeout cleanup. Consider state locking with S3 + DynamoDB best practices.
terraform init -reconfigure
terraform workspace list