Unable to delete cfn stack, role is invalid or cannot be assumed

Question

I'm new to aws cloudformation; I'm wondering if anybody knows of a way to force delete a stack when it just won't delete. It fails with this error:

Failed to delete stack: Role arn:aws:iam::role/CloudFormationRole-NestedCFN-CodePipeline is invalid or cannot be assumed 

This error usually happens when I try to delete a nested child stack instead of starting by deleting the parent stack first. Is there any way to delete the nested stack if I accidentally deleteted the parent stack?

Answer 1

I got the same problem and the only way to delete the stack was using the AWS CLI and executing the following command:

aws cloudformation delete-stack --role-arn arn:aws:iam::xxxx:role/anyrolewithpermissions --stack-name StuckStack 

just be sure to use another role with enough permissions.