What causes "some blocks not removed" in ipfs/kubo?

Check stderr for the per-block `cannot remove : ` lines

some blocks not removed

Error message

some blocks not removed

What it means

`ipfs block rm` reports this aggregate error when at least one requested block could not be removed. During iteration each per-block failure prints `cannot remove <hash>: <error>` to stderr, sets someFailed=true, and at the end the command returns `some blocks not removed` so scripts see a non-zero exit even though other blocks were removed successfully.

Source

Thrown at core/commands/block.go:357

			for {
				res, err := res.Next()
				if err == io.EOF {
					break
				} else if err != nil {
					return err
				}
				r := res.(*removedBlock)
				if r.Hash == "" && r.Error != "" {
					return fmt.Errorf("aborted: %s", r.Error)
				} else if r.Error != "" {
					someFailed = true
					fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "cannot remove %s: %s\n", r.Hash, r.Error)
				} else {
					fmt.Fprintf(os.Stdout, "removed %s\n", r.Hash)
				}
			}
			if someFailed {
				return fmt.Errorf("some blocks not removed")
			}
			return nil
		},
	},
	Type: removedBlock{},
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 329838acdf)

Solutions

Check stderr for the per-block `cannot remove <hash>: <reason>` lines
Unpin blocks first with `ipfs pin rm <cid>` before removing them
Use --force to ignore errors for blocks that don't exist
Re-run with only the CIDs that failed after addressing each specific cause

Example fix

// before
ipfs block rm QmPinned QmOk
// after
ipfs pin rm QmPinned
ipfs block rm QmPinned QmOk

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// pre-check pins before removal
for _, cid := range cids {
    if err := exec.Command("ipfs", "pin", "ls", cid).Run(); err == nil {
        _ = exec.Command("ipfs", "pin", "rm", cid).Run()
    }
}

Type guard

null

Try / catch

if err != nil && err.Error() == "some blocks not removed" {
    // parse stderr lines `cannot remove <hash>: <reason>` and retry survivors
}

Prevention

Unpin blocks before removing them
Use --force for CIDs that may not exist
Parse per-block stderr lines to know which failed
Keep a per-CID error log for batch removals

When it happens

Trigger: `ipfs block rm <cids...>` where any CID fails removal (e.g. it is pinned, or does not exist without --force, or the datastore errors).

Common situations: Attempting to remove pinned blocks (block rm does not unpin), removing nonexistent CIDs, or batch scripts that mix valid and invalid CIDs.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of ipfs/kubo@329838acdf (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/95deff6f81eefe06. Report an issue: GitHub.