Unable to delete openstack instance stuck at Error state

When you attempt to delete instance from either openstack CLI or openstack dashboard and if it get stuck at error state as follows:

GUI:

CLI:

`nova list` will show:

  | 1541a197-9f80-4ee5-a7d6-08e591aa8lokin | sravan0 | ERROR | deleting | NOSTATE  

There may be so many reasons for this error state like attached volume may not able to reclaim, or unable to reclaim associated port by neutron and so on.

Sometimes we can try from CLI after resetting state "nova reset-state <instance>" using "nova delete $instanceid"

When above workaround is not working along with any other options, at last if you want to mark instance as deleted in nova database then we can follow below approach:

Note: Please use this when you hit the wall other wise not recommended:

Step 1: Get instance details using "nova show "$instanceid""

[root@controller ~]# nova show 92b9c565-d908-4dd0-a169-f58b3ce71428

Property	Value
OS-DCF:diskConfig	AUTO
OS-EXT-AZ:availability_zone	nova
OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host	kvm-02
OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:hypervisor_hostname	kvm-02
OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:instance_name	instance-0000005b
OS-EXT-STS:power_state	1
OS-EXT-STS:task_state	-
OS-EXT-STS:vm_state	active
OS-SRV-USG:launched_at	2016-05-16T09:35:14.000000
OS-SRV-USG:terminated_at	-
accessIPv4
accessIPv6
config_drive
created	2016-05-16T09:35:09Z
flavor	Standard 5 (b6be6358-120a-4fb9-987c-f10a7e82cb09)
hostId	b8b17a365b15d16f31860029f971348e8c8af7f2092652c5e7c36b83
id	92b9c565-d908-4dd0-a169-f58b3ce71428
image	CentOS-7-x86_64-GenericCloud-1603.qcow2 (7e78fc90-4eed-41a5-8a79-9fef27371278)
key_name	suresh
metadata	{}
name	Jenkins
net-int network	10.10.10.82, 202.65.153.24
os-extended-volumes:volumes_attached	[]
progress	0
security_groups	default
status	ACTIVE
tenant_id	87725975eafe46ebb8c54e02acf0b654
updated	2016-05-16T09:36:04Z
user_id	670959f49dde4aa582d99afbf6835387

 Step 2: Connect to mysql database

[root@controller ~]# mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 241348
Server version: 5.5.47-MariaDB MariaDB Server

Copyright (c) 2000, 2015, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| cinder             |
| glance             |
| keystone           |
| mysql              |
| neutron            |
| nova               |
| performance_schema |
| test               |
+--------------------+

9 rows in set (0.00 sec)

#Now change the database to use nova:

MariaDB [(none)]> use nova;

Reading table information for completion of table and column names

You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

Database changed

MariaDB [nova]>

Step 3: Get the current status of instance from database

MariaDB [nova]> select uuid, hostname, vm_state, task_state, power_state, deleted from instances where uuid="92b9c565-d908-4dd0-a169-f58b3ce71428";

+--------------------------------------+----------+----------+------------+-------------+---------+

| uuid                                 | hostname | vm_state | task_state | power_state | deleted |

+--------------------------------------+----------+----------+------------+-------------+---------+

| 92b9c565-d908-4dd0-a169-f58b3ce71428 | jenkins  | active   | NULL       |           1 |       0 |

+--------------------------------------+----------+----------+------------+-------------+---------+

1 row in set (0.00 sec)

##Mark instance deleted state to 1 using below query

MariaDB [nova]> update instances set deleted='1', vm_state='deleted', deleted_at='now()' where uuid='77beaec2-636e-4e3e-9867-5df057fc94be' and project_id='87725975eafe46ebb8c54e02acf0b654';

validate the state again by running above status query:

MariaDB [nova]> select uuid, hostname, vm_state, task_state, power_state, deleted from instances where uuid="92b9c565-d908-4dd0-a169-f58b3ce71428";

+--------------------------------------+----------+----------+------------+-------------+---------+

| uuid                                 | hostname | vm_state | task_state | power_state | deleted |

+--------------------------------------+----------+----------+------------+-------------+---------+

| 92b9c565-d908-4dd0-a169-f58b3ce71428 | jenkins  | deleted| NULL       |           0 |       1 |

+--------------------------------------+----------+----------+------------+-------------+---------+

1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Now you can see your power state and deleted db columns set to 0,1 respectively even this instance will be removed from openstack dashboard also.

Hope this post helped...