risingwavelabs/risingwave · error

Dropping sink into table is not allowed for unmigrated table

Error message

Dropping sink into table is not allowed for unmigrated table {}. Please migrate it first.

What it means

During drop_object, when dropping a sink whose target is a table, RisingWave checks that the target table is either being removed in the same transaction or has already been migrated (has_table_been_migrated). If the sink targets an unmigrated table, the drop is rejected with this error to avoid breaking the legacy table-sink coupling that the migration process is meant to resolve.

Source

Thrown at src/meta/src/controller/catalog/drop_op.rs:124

            },
        };

        removed_objects.push(obj);
        let mut removed_object_ids: HashSet<_> =
            removed_objects.iter().map(|obj| obj.oid).collect();

        for obj in &removed_objects {
            if obj.obj_type == ObjectType::Sink {
                let sink = Sink::find_by_id(obj.oid.as_sink_id())
                    .one(&txn)
                    .await?
                    .ok_or_else(|| MetaError::catalog_id_not_found("sink", obj.oid))?;

                if let Some(target_table) = sink.target_table
                    && !removed_object_ids.contains(&target_table.as_object_id())
                    && !has_table_been_migrated(&txn, target_table).await?
                {
                    return Err(anyhow::anyhow!(
                        "Dropping sink into table is not allowed for unmigrated table {}. Please migrate it first.",
                        target_table
                    ).into());
                }
            }
        }

        // Load all objects that belong to the dropped objects before deletion. Cascaded rows are
        // still needed for notifications and resource cleanup.
        let root_objects = Object::find()
            .filter(object::Column::Oid.is_in(removed_object_ids.iter().copied()))
            .all(&txn)
            .await?;
        let belonging_objects =
            get_belong_objects_by_ids(&txn, removed_objects.iter().map(|obj| obj.oid)).await?;
        removed_object_ids.extend(belonging_objects.iter().map(|obj| obj.oid));
        let mut objects_to_remove = root_objects.clone();
        objects_to_remove.extend(belonging_objects.iter().cloned());

View on GitHub (pinned to 6469eb736d)

Solutions

1. Run the table migration for the target table first (as the message says), then drop the sink.
2. Drop the target table and the sink together in the same operation/batch.
3. Recreate the sink against a migrated (or external) target instead of the legacy table.

Example fix

// before
DROP SINK my_sink; -- fails: table unmigrated
// after
-- migrate the table first, then:
DROP SINK my_sink;

-- before DROP SINK, confirm the target table is migrated or will be dropped too
-- SQL: inspect sink targets and table state
SHOW SINKS; -- identify sinks into tables
-- ensure the table is migrated per your upgrade runbook before dropping the sink

match drop_result {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("unmigrated table") => {
        run_table_migration(target_table)?;
        drop_result = drop_sink(name).await; // retry once after migration
    }
    other => other?,
}

When it happens

Trigger: DROP SINK on a sink created with 'INTO TABLE' where the target table still exists, is not part of the current removal batch (removed_object_ids), and has_table_been_migrated returns false.

Common situations: Upgrading clusters that require sink-into-table migration; attempting to clean up legacy sinks before running the required migration step; scripted teardown dropping sinks while their tables remain.

Understand the failure class

Background: UnsupportedOperationException and "is not supported" errors: when a library deliberately refuses a call — this error's family across 30 libraries.

Related errors

• no active frontend nodes found
• replace sink must not use snapshot backfill
• old sink job {} not found in barrier state
• replacement sink catalog requires a sink job
• old sink {} does not match replacement sink {}

AI-assisted analysis of risingwavelabs/risingwave@6469eb736d (2026-09-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/57920caf5166d592. Report an issue: GitHub.