Terraform apply fails for azurerm_container_app even though resource exists in state

[VenuPentyala22]

Is there an existing issue for this?

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Terraform Version

1.14.3

AzureRM Provider Version

4.47.0

Affected Resource(s)/Data Source(s)

azurerm_container_app

Terraform Configuration Files

resource "azurerm_container_app" "app" {
  name                         = app_name
  container_app_environment_id = container_app_environment_id
  resource_group_name          = rg
  revision_mode                = "Single"

  workload_profile_name = "Consumption"

  registry {
    server   = server_name
    identity = data.azurerm_user_assigned_identity.app.id
  }

.....

}

Debug Output/Panic Output

│ Error: a resource with the ID "/subscriptions/***/resourceGroups/rg/providers/Microsoft.App/containerApps/containerapp" already exists - to be managed via Terraform this resource needs to be imported into the State. Please see the resource documentation for "azurerm_container_app" for more information
│ 
│   with module.container_app.azurerm_container_app.app,
│   on .terraform/modules/container_app/azure/modules/container-app/main.tf line 1, in resource "azurerm_container_app" "app":
│    1: resource "azurerm_container_app" "app" {

Expected Behaviour

Terraform should consistently manage existing Azure Container Apps without failing.

Terraform state should be retained across deployments.

Manual deletion of resources should not be required.

Resources should not be recreated or orphaned between runs.

Actual Behaviour

terraform apply fails stating the Container App already exists.

The resource is present in the Terraform state at the time of failure.

Current workaround is to manually delete:

The Azure Container App

The associated Private DNS record

After deletion, the next deployment succeeds, but the issue reoccurs on subsequent deployments.

Steps to Reproduce

Deploy an Azure Container App using Terraform.

Run a subsequent terraform apply.

Terraform fails with an error stating the resource already exists and must be imported into state.

Important Factoids

No response

References

No response

[jiaweitao001]

Hi @VenuPentyala22 , thanks for opening this issue. This might have the same root cause of #28511 .

What's happening:
When you create a Container App, Azure performs two operations: (1) create the resource, and (2) deploy the revision (including pulling container images). If step 2 fails for any reason (e.g., image pull failure, registry access issues), Azure still has the resource created, but Terraform doesn't record the ID in state because the overall operation failed. On subsequent runs, Terraform tries to create it again and gets the "already exists" error.

There's already a PR for fixing: #28513

[VenuPentyala22]

Hi @jiaweitao001 Thanks for you response.

Do we know when they plan to merge it? The PR has been open for almost a year now.

Is there a stable version can recommend, or should we consider other options?

[jiaweitao001]

Hi @VenuPentyala22 , I'm not sure when the PR will get merged. HashiCorp has their own cadence on it.

As for workaround, I would recommend using Azapi for now to mitigate this issue.