Bug | Application removal stuck due to obstructive finalizers

[janwytze]

Describe the bug

Specific applications don't get removed because of finalizers that can't complete. For us the zookeeper-operator gets stuck.

Expected behavior

Applications should get deleted after argocd-diff-preview has completed.

Standard output (with --debug flag)

ArgoCD app status:

DeletionError
error executing pre-delete hooks: namespaces "zookeeper-operator" not found
a minute ago (Thu May 07 2026 09:18:46 GMT+0200)
SharedResourceWarning
ClusterRole/zookeeper-operator-pre-delete is part of applications argocd/2f1d3-b-zookeeper-operator--xxx-aks-de-west-prod and 8e4b0-t-zookeeper-operator--xxx-aks-de-west-prod
2 days ago (Tue May 05 2026 11:35:20 GMT+0200)
SharedResourceWarning
ClusterRoleBinding/zookeeper-operator-pre-delete is part of applications argocd/2f1d3-b-zookeeper-operator--xxx-aks-de-west-prod and 8e4b0-t-zookeeper-operator--xxx-aks-de-west-prod
3 minutes ago (Thu May 07 2026 09:16:51 GMT+0200)

Application causing problems (if applicable)

zookeeper-operator

Parameters

      --create-cluster=false \
      --argocd-namespace argocd \
      --argocd-ui-url https://argocd.k8s.xxx.com \
      --repo xxxinfra/apps \
      --base-branch "$CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TARGET_BRANCH_NAME" \
      --target-branch "$CI_MERGE_REQUEST_SOURCE_BRANCH_NAME" \
      --timeout 1200 \
      --concurrency 20 \
      --max-diff-length 60000 \
      --diff-ignore 'checksum/'

Your pipeline (if applicable)

n/a

[dag-andersen]

Hi @janwytze, thanks for reporting this!
Try the new release v0.2.5 🚀 Let me know if that solves the problem.

[janwytze]

Hi @janwytze, thanks for reporting this! Try the new release v0.2.5 🚀 Let me know if that solves the problem.

Thanks for the quick support! I've updated to v0.2.6, but it still seems to have issues deleting the Application:

⚠️ Failed to delete application from cluster error="failed to remove finalizers from application 82fb6-b-zookeeper-operator--xxx-aks-de-west-test before deletion: Operation cannot be fulfilled on applications.argoproj.io \"82fb6-b-zookeeper-operator--xxx-aks-de-west-test\": the object has been modified; please apply your changes to the latest version and try again" (App: "zookeeper-operator--xxx-aks-de-west-test [b|.argocd/applicationsets/worker.yaml]")