ROLLBACK_COMPLETE ☁️ AWS

Stack is in ROLLBACK_COMPLETE state and can not be updated

The stack’s first creation failed and rolled back; a stack in ROLLBACK_COMPLETE can only be deleted, not updated.

Seen on: AWS

Meaning

When a new stack fails to create, CloudFormation deletes what it made and leaves the empty stack in ROLLBACK_COMPLETE. You must delete it and create again — after fixing the original failure, which is in the stack events.

Common causes

  • Initial stack creation failed (permissions, name conflicts, invalid properties)
  • Re-running deploy against the failed stack

⚡ Quick fix

  1. Find the first CREATE_FAILED event for the real reason
  2. Delete the stack, fix, deploy again
  3. SAM/CDK: deploy will work after deletion

Detailed fix by platform

AWS CLI

  1. bash
    aws cloudformation describe-stack-events --stack-name app --query "StackEvents[?ResourceStatus=='CREATE_FAILED'].[LogicalResourceId,ResourceStatusReason]" --output table
aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name app

How to diagnose

  1. Events — First CREATE_FAILED reason
  2. Status — describe-stacks

🔧 Still not fixed?

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