TL;DR: Temporarily update the retention time on the topic to one second: [code block] And in newer Kafka releases, you can also do it with `kafka-configs --entity-type topics` [code block] then wait for the purge to take effect (duration depends on size of the topic).

## Fix
1. Temporarily update the retention time on the topic to one second: [code block] And in newer Kafka releases, you can also do it with.
   Expected: this specific failure stops.

## Details
`kafka-configs --entity-type topics` [code block] then wait for the purge to take effect (duration depends on size of the topic). Once purged, restore the previous `retention.ms` value.

## When to use
You hit exactly this: Is there a way to purge the topic in Kafka? in Is.

## When not to use
A different error, or the same symptom in a different tool. This page only covers the failure above.

## Compatibility
Is.