Summary: This wiki page explains how to forcefully delete Kubernetes resources that are stuck or not responding.
Date: 5 August 2025

Sometimes you may encounter Kubernetes resources that are stuck in a terminating state or not responding to normal deletion commands. This wiki page will show you why that is and how to resolve that.

Kubernetes resources can have finalizers, which are used to perform cleanup tasks before the resource is deleted. If a finalizer is not removed, the resource will remain in a terminating state indefinitely. This can happen if the finalizer's cleanup logic fails or if the controller responsible for it is not functioning correctly.

If a resource is stuck in a terminating state, you can use kubectl describe to check for finalizers and then forcefully delete the resource by removing the finalizers. Here’s how you can do it:

# Check the resource status and finalizers
kubectl describe <resource_type> <resource_name>
# Forcefully delete the resource by removing finalizers
kubectl edit <resource_type> <resource_name>
# This will open the resource in your default editor
# Remove the finalizers section from the YAML
# Save and exit the editor

When the finalizer is removed from the object, it either gets deleted immediatley, or you can delete the resource again using kubectl delete <resource_type> <resource_name>

This is an example of a finalizer in a Kubernetes resource, in this case a NiFi Registry client:

apiVersion: nifi.konpyutaika.com/v1
kind: NifiRegistryClient
metadata:
  annotations:
    argocd.argoproj.io/tracking-id: nifi:nifi.konpyutaika.com/NifiRegistryClient:nifi/nifi-cluster-default-registry-client
  creationTimestamp: "2024-11-13T15:53:44Z"
  deletionGracePeriodSeconds: 0
  deletionTimestamp: "2025-04-10T12:45:47Z"
  finalizers:
  - nifiregistryclients.nifi.konpyutaika.com/finalizer
  generation: 2
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/managed-by: Helm
    app.kubernetes.io/version: 1.26.0
    helm.sh/chart: nifi-cluster-1.9.0
    nifiCluster: nifi-cluster.nifi
  name: nifi-cluster-default-registry-client
  namespace: nifi
  resourceVersion: "625085233"
  uid: b52aa24c-ada0-469a-af8b-c7cac17375e9
spec:
  clusterRef:
    name: nifi-cluster
  description: NiFi Registry client
status:
  id: 263b0c5d-0193-1000-ffff-ffffac554baa
  version: 0

You can delete the full finalizers section to forcefully delete the resource:

  finalizers:
  - nifiregistryclients.nifi.konpyutaika.com/finalizer