Diagnose: Terraform azurerm backend: state lock held or backend auth failed
Symptom: Terraform azurerm backend: state lock held or backend auth failed Cause: Two flavors: 'Error acquiring the state lock' (a previous apply crashed or is still running) and backend auth failures (the backend block authenticates separately from the provider).
SYMPTOM Terraform azurerm backend: state lock held or backend auth failed
CAUSE Two flavors: 'Error acquiring the state lock' (a previous apply crashed or is still running) and backend auth failures (the backend block authenticates separately from the provider).
CONFIRM IT CONFIRM: lock error names the lock ID and who holds it - check whether that apply is actually still running before force-unlocking. Backend auth failure happens at terraform init, provider auth failure at plan: the stage tells you which block is misconfigured.
FIX FIX: lock genuinely orphaned: terraform force-unlock [id] (only when sure nothing is running). Backend auth: give the backend the same ARM_ env vars / OIDC as the provider, or a valid SAS for the state blob. Never delete the state blob to clear a lock.
VERIFY VERIFY: terraform init then plan runs clean with no lock error; state blob lease is free.
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