# Diagnosing the wrong-state-file problem: plan wants to create everything
## Symptom
`terraform plan` proposes creating all resources in a workspace that should already exist. Everything shows as new.
## Cause
Terraform is reading the wrong state: wrong workspace selected, backend rebound to a new key, state file lost, or init pointed at a fresh backend.
## Confirmation
1. `terraform workspace show` (or check the backend key). Is this the workspace you think it is?
2. `terraform state list | wc -l` and `terraform state pull | grep serial`. Empty list or serial 1 means fresh/empty state.
3. Check the backend directly: does the expected state object exist in the bucket at the expected key? If yes, Terraform is bound to the wrong key. If no, the state is actually gone.
4. `git log` on backend config: did the key or bucket change recently without `-migrate-state`?
## Fix
1. Wrong workspace: `terraform workspace select [correct]`. Then plan again.
2. Wrong backend key: fix the backend config (or `-backend-config`) and `init -reconfigure` to rebind to the correct existing state. Back up first.
3. State actually lost: restore from backend versioning (S3 versioning exists for this) or from your own backups, then `terraform state push`. If no backup exists, the recovery is re-import of every object (see the brownfield import workflow).
## Verification
1. After rebinding, `terraform plan` must show no changes (or only expected ones). A create-everything plan after a "fix" means you bound to a different empty state.
2. `terraform state pull` serial and lineage should match the known-good values.
STOP: never apply a create-everything plan on existing infrastructure. That is how you get duplicates of everything.