## TL;DR

If meltano state clear does not remove state from a GCS bucket, check whether state_backend.uri is the bucket root: that path was affected by a bug that prepended a slash to the state file path and silently left the blob in place.

## Steps

1. If meltano state clear does not remove state from a GCS bucket, check whether state_backend.uri is the bucket root: that path was affected by a bug that prepended a slash to the state file path and silently left the blob in place. Immediate workaround: set the URI to a nested prefix like gs://bucket/state. Permanent fix: upgrade Meltano past the 2025-02-28 fix. After clearing, always confirm with meltano state list and a bucket listing before rerunning, so a stale state cannot silently resume.

## When to use

You are seeing this: After clearing, always confirm with meltano state list and a bucket listing before rerunning, so a stale state cannot silently resume. Use this skill when you run into "Meltano GCS state not clearing at bucket root: use a nested prefix".

## When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

## Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

## Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.