erlangelixirmnesia

Cannot delete a mnesia table that I know exists

I have a mnesia table that I am trying to delete. However, when I try to run :mnesia.delete(TableName) I get this error back {:aborted, {:no_exists, TableName}}

When I try to create the same table by running :mnesia.create_table(TableName, [attributes: [:id, :att1, :att2], disc_copies: [Node.self()]]) I get this back {:aborted, {:already_exists, TableName}}

I can still see the .DCD file for the table after a delete, what causes this and how can I fix it?

Note: The code is in an Elixir codebase.

Edit: When my application starts, I try to delete and recreate that table, even if it exists.

Solution

  • :mnesia.delete/1 looks for a key to delete in the given table (and takes a tuple {Table, Key}).

    You probably want :mnesia.delete_table/1 which will delete the table itself.

    Docs for more: http://erlang.org/doc/man/mnesia.html#delete_table-1