Troubleshoot namespace stuck in the Terminating state

This page shows you how to resolve issues with a namespace stuck in the Terminating state.

Namespaces use Kubernetes finalizers to prevent deletion if one or more resources within a namespace still exist. When you delete a namespace using the kubectl delete command, the namespace enters the Terminating state. The namespace stays in the Terminating state until Kubernetes deletes its dependent resources and clears all finalizers. The namespace lifecycle controller first lists all resources in the namespace that GKE needs to delete.

If GKE can't delete a dependent resource, or if the namespace lifecycle controller can't verify that the namespace is empty, then the namespace remains in the Terminating state until you resolve the issue.

To resolve a namespace stuck in the Terminating state, identify and remove any unhealthy components blocking the deletion. Try these solutions in order:

Find and remove unavailable API services.
Find and remove remaining resources.
Force delete the namespace.

Find and remove unavailable API services

List unavailable API services:
```
kubectlgetapiservice|grepFalse
```
Troubleshoot any unresponsive services:
```
kubectldescribeapiserviceAPI_SERVICE
```
Replace API_SERVICE with the name of the unresponsive service.
Check if the status of the namespace is still Terminating:
```
kubectlgetns|grepTerminating
```

Find and remove remaining resources

List all the resources remaining in the terminating namespace:
```
kubectlapi-resources--verbs=list--namespaced-oname|xargs-n1kubectlget-nNAMESPACE
```
Replace NAMESPACE with the name of the namespace you want to delete.
Remove any resources displayed in the output.
Check if the status of the namespace is still Terminating:
```
kubectlgetns|grepTerminating
```

Force delete the namespace

Remove the finalizers blocking namespace deletion to force the namespace to terminate:

Save the namespace manifest as a YAML file:

kubectlgetnsNAMESPACE-oyaml > ns-terminating.yml

Open the manifest in a text editor and remove all values in the spec.finalizers field:
```
vins-terminating.yml
```

Verify that the finalizers field is empty:

catns-terminating.yml

The output should look similar to the following:

apiVersion:v1
kind:Namespace
metadata:
annotations:
name:NAMESPACE
spec:
finalizers:
status:
phase:Terminating

Start an HTTP proxy to access the Kubernetes API:
```
kubectlproxy
```

Replace the namespace manifest using curl:

curl-H"Content-Type: application/yaml"-XPUT--data-binary@ns-terminating.ymlhttp://127.0.0.1:8001/api/v1/namespaces/NAMESPACE/finalize

Check if the status of the namespace is still Terminating:
```
kubectlgetns|grepTerminating
```

What's next

If you can't find a solution to your problem in the documentation, see Get support for further help, including advice on the following topics:
- Opening a support case by contacting Cloud Customer Care.
- Getting support from the community by asking questions on StackOverflow and using the google-kubernetes-engine tag to search for similar issues. You can also join the #kubernetes-engine Slack channel for more community support.
- Opening bugs or feature requests by using the public issue tracker.