Forum Discussion
Unable to Delete Data Pipelines and Notebooks
I have some items in my Fabric workspace that I cannot delete. When I try to delete them, Fabric tells me that they have dependent items, but this is not true. Two of my pipelines are empty (no activities) and my notebook has had the lakehouse reference removed. I have no idea why I cannot delete them. Any suggestions?
This issue is resolved now - I tried to delete the pipelines after waiting a few days and they were deleted successfully. I can only assume that there were some references in deleted items, or some other object that was preventing deletion.
8 Replies
Hi CoulterJames2,
Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Fabric Community.
Here the dependent items message means another fabric item is still referencing the pipeline or notebook, even if it shows as empty. Please check the Lineage view or Impact analysis to identify if there are any remaining dependencies. Also check the workspace Recycle bin, as deleted items can sometimes continue to hold references.
If no dependencies are shown and if you are still unable to delete the items, I recommend opening a Microsoft Fabric support ticket for further investigation.
Create a Fabric and Power BI Support Ticket - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
Thanks and regards,
Anjan Kumar Chippa
Hi CoulterJames2,
As we haven’t heard back from you, we wanted to kindly follow up to check if the solution I have provided for the issue worked? or have you raised a support ticket?
Thanks and regards,
Anjan Kumar Chippa
There are no dependent items in lineage view or impact analysis. I can only assume that there are deleted items in the Recycle Bin that reference these objects which is preventing them from being deleted.
I've run into similar situations before. In some cases the dependency isn't visible in the UI even though Fabric still considers the item referenced somewhere.
A few things I would check:
- Verify that the pipeline/notebook isn't referenced by another pipeline, shortcut, dataflow, deployment pipeline, or workspace item.
- Try publishing/saving the notebook again after removing all references and then refresh the workspace.
- Check whether the item exists in another environment and is linked through a deployment pipeline.
Out of curiosity: what exact error message do you get when attempting the deletion?
Hello CoulterJames2, thanks for posting in the community.
I recommend using VS Code with the Fabric Studio extension. This exposes some of those items that are hidden in the UI. Both VS Code and the Fabric Studio extension are free. It is also pretty easy to use. Install extensions, select an extension, login to Fabric via VS code, filter for your workspace. That alone with allow you to see a view like the one in the screenshot below. For example, the staging dataflows visible in the screenshot from VS Code are not visible in the Fabric workspace UI.
Download Visual Studio Code - Free AI Code Editor for Mac, Linux, Windows
Introduction to Fabric Studio (with Gerhard Brueckl)
There are many Fabric-related extensions available.
If this post helps to answer your questions, please consider marking it as a solution so others can find it more quickly when faced with a similar challenge.
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