Deadlock Error (SQLSTATE 40P01) When Republishing Private Module with Multiple Versions

Introduction -:

This article addresses an issue encountered in Terraform Enterprise (TFE) when attempting to re-publish a private module to the private registry after it has been deleted. The error is specific to cases where the module has multiple versions, and users experience random failures during re-publishing attempts.

Problem -:

When a customer deletes a private module from the TFE registry and immediately attempts to re-publish it, some module versions intermittently fail to publish with the following error displayed in the TFE UI:

Error: 1 error occurred: * ERROR: deadlock detected (SQLSTATE 40P01)

Each retry may show different versions failing with the same error, indicating it is not specific to any single module version

Cause -:

This issue is caused by database deadlocks due to concurrent transactions. When a module with multiple versions is deleted and re-published immediately:

• Some of the older module versions may still be in the process of being cleaned up/deleted in the background.
• Simultaneously, the re-publishing jobs try to reinsert those same versions.

This may creates a dead lock situation in the PostgreSQL database, resulting in deadlock errors.

Logs from the support bundle will show details like:

ERROR: deadlock detected (SQLSTATE 40P01)\n\n, Detail: Process 654 waits for ShareLock on transaction 44434988; blocked by process 653.\nProcess 653 waits for ShareLock on transaction 44434999; blocked by process 661.\nProcess 661 waits for ExclusiveLock on tuple (16,16) of relation 16557 of database 16467; blocked by process 654.","stack":"github.com/hashicorp/go-hclog.Stacktrace\n\t/go/pkg/mod/github.com/hashicorp/REDACTED@REDACTED/stacktrace.go:51\ngithub.com/has

Overview of possible solutions -:

This deadlock error is temporary and usually resolves itself upon retry.

Recommended steps:

1. If you encounter the error, wait 30–60 seconds and try publishing the module again.

2. To avoid the error altogether, after deleting a module from the registry:

   • Wait a few minutes before starting the re-publish process.

   • This allows all background deletion jobs to fully complete and release any locks in the database.

Following the above approach should ensure all module versions publish successfully without any failures.

Additional Information

• This is a known issue and a bug report has already been submitted to HashiCorp Engineering . This article will be updated as soon as any fixes or any recommendation has been released from engineering .