When performing a Blue/Green deployment in Amazon OpenSearch Service, you might notice the process gets stuck at the “Deleting older resources” phase for a long time. This situation is unusual and usually points to an issue with AWS’s control panel, not something you can fix on your end.
In this type of deployment, OpenSearch creates new nodes, moves your data over, and then deletes the old system. If everything else looks fine — your cluster remains healthy and continues handling traffic — it means your main workload isn’t affected. However, the problem comes when you cannot change configurations or buy Reserved Instances because the cleanup process isn’t completing.
The key thing to understand is that this part of the process—deleting old resources—is managed entirely by AWS. You won’t find command-line tools or options to speed up or check behind the scenes beyond what is shown in the DescribeDomainChangeProgress feature.
If you’re using basic AWS support, your best step is to go to the AWS Support Center and report this issue. While basic support doesn’t offer technical help for every problem, you can file a service request or issue report. It’s also a good idea to consider upgrading your support plan. Higher-tier plans give you access to technical support engineers who can look into control plane issues like this and help resolve them faster.
In most cases, situations like getting stuck on deleting older resources require help from AWS’s OpenSearch service team. They can investigate what’s blocking the cleanup process and fix the issue from their end.
For reference, similar issues and troubleshooting tips can be found in official AWS resources, such as the post about dealing with stuck or failed upgrades in OpenSearch Service.