How Do I Solve the Problem that Kafka Topics Cannot Be Deleted?

Question

How do I delete a Kafka topic if it fails to be deleted?

Answer

• Possible cause 1: The delete.topic.enable configuration item is not set to true. The deletion can be performed only when the configuration item is set to true.
• Possible cause 2: The auto.create.topics.enable configuration parameter is set to true, which is used by other applications and is always running in the background.

Solution:

• For cause 1: Set delete.topic.enable to true on the configuration page.
• For cause 2: Stop the application that uses the topic in the background, or set auto.create.topics.enable to false (restart the Kafka service), and then delete the topic.