Immediate cluster re-creation blocked by operation timeout

[lenin-joseph]

Strimzi 0.45.0, Kafka 3.9.0

When creating a Kafka cluster, if the cluster (including PVCs) is deleted during the creation process and then immediately recreated with the same name (within the default STRIMZI_OPERATION_TIMEOUT_MS of 5 minutes), the cluster status shows clusterId: Not Available. It remains in this state until the operation timeout expires, after which reconciliation completes successfully.

We tried lowering STRIMZI_OPERATION_TIMEOUT_MS to 2 minutes, but since our test automation recreates clusters multiple times, even 2 minutes adds noticeable overhead to the total runtime.

From what we understand, STRIMZI_OPERATION_TIMEOUT_MS controls internal operations within the Strimzi Cluster Operator. Is this behavior expected?

status:
clusterId: Not Available

[scholzj]

Yes, this is expected when you delete the cluster while it is still being created. I'm not sure why exactly are you deelting it, but just don't do it, that is the easiest solution. Also, if you need to for some reason need to delete the cluster before it is created and create it again, just use a new name for the new cluster to avoid it being blocked.