[Bug]: SecretsManager secret version does not gracefully remove deleted versions from state

[jar-b]

Terraform Core Version

1.8.0-rc1

AWS Provider Version

5.42.0

Affected Resource(s)

• aws_secretsmanager_secret_version

Expected Behavior

When a secret version is deleted by the automated AWS cleanup process, the provider should remove the resource from state

Actual Behavior

The provider throws an error:

│ Error: error reading Secrets Manager Secret Version (arn:aws:secretsmanager:us-east-1:<redacted>:secret:example2-o0Q1tI|<redacted>): InvalidRequestException: You can't perform this operation on secret version <redacted> because it was deleted.

Relevant Error/Panic Output Snippet

No response

Terraform Configuration Files

resource "aws_secretsmanager_secret_version" "example" {
  secret_id     = aws_secretsmanager_secret.example.id
  secret_string = "example-string-to-protect"
}

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a new secret version.
2. Update the secret until more than 100 new versions have been created (out of band). This should trigger AWS's automated cleanup process some time after 24 hours.

Secrets Manager removes unlabeled versions when there are more than 100, but it does not remove versions created less than 24 hours ago.

3. Observe failure on terraform plan.

Debug Output

No response

Panic Output

No response

Important Factoids

The AWS provider includes logic like the following to catch deleted secrets and remove them from state gracefully. However, there is no handling for deleted secret versions.

terraform-provider-aws/internal/service/secretsmanager/secret_version.go

Line 328 in 3532b9f

errs.IsAErrorMessageContains[*types.InvalidRequestException](err, "You can’t perform this operation on the secret because it was deleted") ||

Updating this check to a shorter portion of the error message should allow for detection of both secrets and secret versions deleted out of band.

References

• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/secretsmanager/latest/userguide/reference_limits.html

Would you like to implement a fix?

None

[github-actions]

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[xnick123]

I can confirm this error, I struggled to understand the pattern leading to this. It happens across multiple environments on a secret where I perform secret rotation every 4 hours. It did not happen on other secrets which I don't rotate. Hence I believe that the explanation makes sense.

[github-actions]

Warning

This issue has been closed, meaning that any additional comments are hard for our team to see. Please assume that the maintainers will not see them.

Ongoing conversations amongst community members are welcome, however, the issue will be locked after 30 days. Moving conversations to another venue, such as the AWS Provider forum, is recommended. If you have additional concerns, please open a new issue, referencing this one where needed.

[github-actions]

This functionality has been released in v5.43.0 of the Terraform AWS Provider. Please see the Terraform documentation on provider versioning or reach out if you need any assistance upgrading.

For further feature requests or bug reports with this functionality, please create a new GitHub issue following the template. Thank you!

[github-actions]

I'm going to lock this issue because it has been closed for 30 days ⏳. This helps our maintainers find and focus on the active issues.
If you have found a problem that seems similar to this, please open a new issue and complete the issue template so we can capture all the details necessary to investigate further.