What causes "Failed to clear project assignments." in Budibase/budibase?

Retry the project deletion once concurrent edits have settled — the rollback leaves state consistent

Budibase/budibase · critical · HTTPError

Failed to clear project assignments.

Error message

Failed to clear project assignments.

What it means

Thrown by clearAssignments when a bulkDocs batch removing the project from assigned documents reports per-document failures. The successfully updated docs are rolled back and a 500 HTTPError is raised, so project deletion is aborted with assignment state restored.

Source

Thrown at packages/server/src/sdk/workspace/projects/crud.ts:227

  }

  try {
    const results = await db.bulkDocs(changedDocs)
    const failures = results
      .map((result, index) => ({ result, index }))
      .filter(({ result }) => result.error)

    if (failures.length) {
      for (const { result, index } of results
        .map((result, index) => ({ result, index }))
        .filter(({ result }) => !result.error)) {
        const original = originals[index]
        rollbacks.push(async () => {
          await db.put({ ...original, _rev: result.rev })
        })
      }
      await rollbackAssignments(rollbacks)
      throw new HTTPError("Failed to clear project assignments.", 500)
    }

    for (const [index, result] of results.entries()) {
      const original = originals[index]
      rollbacks.push(async () => {
        await db.put({ ...original, _rev: result.rev })
      })
    }
  } catch (err) {
    if (!(err instanceof HTTPError)) {
      await rollbackAssignments(rollbacks)
    }
    throw err
  }

  return rollbacks
}

View on GitHub (pinned to a81a902e9a)

Solutions

Retry the project deletion once concurrent edits have settled — the rollback leaves state consistent
Re-fetch the assigned docs and ensure no stale _rev conflicts exist before deleting
Check server logs (the rollback failure detail is logged) to identify which docs failed and why
Reduce concurrent automation/replication activity during deletion, then retry

Example fix

// before
deleteProject(id) // fails while users edit assigned docs
// after
try {
  await sdk.projects.remove(id, rev)
} catch (e) {
  if (String(e.message).includes("Failed to clear project assignments")) {
    await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 1000)) // let concurrent writes settle
    const fresh = await sdk.projects.get(id)
    if (fresh) await sdk.projects.remove(id, fresh._rev!)
  }
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

null

Type guard

null

Try / catch

try {
  await sdk.projects.remove(id, rev)
} catch (e) {
  if (String(e.message).includes("Failed to clear project assignments") && attempts < 3) {
    await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, backoff))
    const fresh = await sdk.projects.get(id)
    if (fresh) await sdk.projects.remove(id, fresh._rev!)
  }
}

Prevention

Retry deletion with backoff; state is rolled back and remains consistent
Avoid deleting projects while automations/replication are writing to assigned docs
Check server logs to identify the specific docs that failed bulkDocs
Inform users to pause concurrent editing sessions during project deletion

When it happens

Trigger: Deleting a project (remove -> clearAssignments) while some assigned docs cannot be written — concurrent edits producing _rev conflicts during bulkDocs, validation rejections, or DB write errors on individual docs in the batch.

Common situations: Users editing rows/datasources at the same moment an admin deletes the project; replication or sync processes holding newer revisions; CouchDB contention under load.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of Budibase/budibase@a81a902e9a (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4ac34807051f58d0. Report an issue: GitHub.