Unable to delete cfn stack, role is invalid or cannot be assumed

Question

I'm new to aws cloudformation; I'm wondering if anybody knows of a way to force delete a stack when it just won't delete. It fails with this error:

Failed to delete stack: Role arn:aws:iam::role/CloudFormationRole-NestedCFN-CodePipeline is invalid or cannot be assumed

This error usually happens when I try to delete a nested child stack instead of starting by deleting the parent stack first. Is there any way to delete the nested stack if I accidentally deleteted the parent stack?

score 84 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 16 '18 at 07:21

84

I got the same problem and the only way to delete the stack was using the AWS CLI and executing the following command:

aws cloudformation delete-stack --role-arn arn:aws:iam::xxxx:role/anyrolewithpermissions --stack-name StuckStack

just be sure to use another role with enough permissions.

answered Feb 16 '18 at 07:21

Juan Zapata

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I would upvote this twice if I could. Helped me every time. – Milan Cermak Feb 18 '19 at 14:26
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This helped me when creating the a role of the same name as the deleted role did not. – AHalbert Jun 07 '19 at 20:12
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This helped me big time. I was trying to delete a nested stack but kept getting `role is invalid or cannot be assumed` even after creating new roles. I created a cloudformation-admin role with enough permissions to delete items in the stack and this command worked. Thanks. – robscodebase May 21 '20 at 03:09
Excellent. Thank you. The 'official' method (https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/cloudformation-stack-delete-failed/) did not work for me. It's so hacky... hard to believe they documented it instead of coming up with a way to do this in the console. – badfun Feb 05 '21 at 19:26
there is a slightly clearer article on the knowledge center now https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/cloudformation-role-arn-error/ – Andy Feb 03 '22 at 08:20
Simple solution that works perfectly fine! – Jonathan Heinen Mar 21 '22 at 21:08
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Make sure to replace xxxx with your account id and anyrolewithpermission with a valid role with the required permission. If you don't know what permissions are required, just create a new temporary role with admin permissions. – Alireza Mar 23 '22 at 18:12
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Four years have passed, this is still the best solution! – Luan Pham Jun 24 '22 at 11:21
I can't believe how easy is this solution after struggling for two years to create referred roles manually. – hahuaz Apr 04 '23 at 14:11
Mwah xxxxxxxxxxx – OrderAndChaos Aug 04 '23 at 02:25

score 67 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 12 '18 at 15:40

I've had this problem a few times. The solution is a bit of a hack. In your case, you need to create a new role named CloudFormationRole-NestedCFN-CodePipeline. When you create this role, you'll likely need to select the CloudFormation service when it asks you to Choose the service that will use this role and then Attach permissions policies. Once the role is created, try to delete the stack again.
Some of this is a guessing game because you need to choose the correct resource (i.e. AWS service) that is a "trusted entity". Based on your role name, it's either CloudFormation or CodePipeline.

After you delete the CloudFormation stack, you can delete the IAM role you just created.

The reason you get this error is because you probably deleted a CloudFormation stack that has an IAM role that's being used by the stack you're trying to delete.

I wish there was a more elegant solution from AWS but this was my workaround.

Thanks very much, the hack worked for me! The other suggested solutions below didn't quite work but thanks for helping me out everyone! — pelican, Mar 04 '18 at 03:59
thanks, this is not a hack but a good solution. As you mentioned its most likely because the IAM role required to delete the stack has been accidentally deleted — Hom Bahrani, Apr 02 '21 at 20:53

score 18 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 02 '21 at 20:51

This usually happens when a role required to delete the stack has been accidentally deleted. You may get the error message

Role arn:aws:iam::<account>:role/<role name> is invalid or cannot be assumed

Go to IAM > roles > create role > click on cloudformation for the service > make sure you give it the right permissions so that cloudformation can delete the stack. (In my case I gave it admin permissions because I was planning to delete the role straight after I deleted the stack > for Role name use the same role name in the error message.

You should now be able to delete the stack

"*make sure you give it the right `permissions` so that cloudformation can delete the stack*" ... what's the name of the permissions needed to delete stacks? There is literally 34 pages each containing around 20 policies. — Sebastian Nielsen, Oct 19 '22 at 11:57

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 04 '19 at 11:55

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This generally occurs in case of nested stacks. Simply create a role with the same name and grant full administrator access permission to the role.With this permission power the role will be able to delete the stack. Delete the role after successful stack deletion

answered Sep 04 '19 at 11:55

Anmol

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This was the only solution that worked for me. – user1751825 Feb 21 '22 at 14:41

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 09 '18 at 21:45

Unfortunately there is no way to force delete a CF Stack.

Couple of things that you can try:

Delete the conflicting resource manually and then re-initiate stack deletion.
Delete the conflicting resource from the CF template and update the Stack with it.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 26 '18 at 13:30

In my case, I deleted the pipeline that created the stack(s) and this removed the Role used by the stack.

Option 1) Role up another pipeline from the pipeline stack, then "update" the stack you can't delete, but tell it to use the new role created by the pipeline. Then delete the stack (even if update fails, the new role is still in play, and you can delete).

Option 2) Create a role matching the role you have deleted (in my case it was as below) and then update stack using this role, then delete.

CloudformationServiceRole:
  Type: AWS::IAM::Role
  Properties:
    AssumeRolePolicyDocument:
      Statement:
      - Action:
        - sts:AssumeRole
        Effect: Allow
        Principal:
          Service:
          - cloudformation.amazonaws.com
      Version: '2012-10-17'
    Path: "/"
    Policies:
      - PolicyName: DeployCloudformationStack
        PolicyDocument:
          Version: '2012-10-17'
          Statement:
          - Resource: "*"
            Effect: Allow
            Action:
            - "*"

There may be other repairs to do afterwards !

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 21 '18 at 14:23

An easier way to solve this issue is to use a change set. The following steps can be followed

Create a role with the correct rights
Select the stack you wish to delete and create change set
In the change set, use the existing template, navigate through the wizard but change the IAM role it uses
Then create and execute the change set.

Then you can delete the stack accordingly

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 12 '23 at 22:12

0

For those who may have missed this, i found deleting the CDKToolkit stack and running cdk boostrap again fixed this issue for me.

answered Feb 12 '23 at 22:12

Dan Ruxton

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Unable to delete cfn stack, role is invalid or cannot be assumed

8 Answers8