Troubleshooting and Fix the Terraform Init Error S3 Backend Bucket Region Mismatch

Effortlessly Resolve Region Mismatch Issues for Seamless Infrastructure Management

Introduction

When working with Terraform to manage infrastructure as code (IaC), encountering errors during initialization can halt your progress. One such error is related to the backend configuration, specifically when Terraform is unable to list objects in an S3 bucket due to a region mismatch. The error message looks something like this:

Initializing the backend...
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│ Error: Failed to get existing workspaces: Unable to list objects in S3 bucket "my-terraform-state" with prefix "env:/": operation error S3: ListObjectsV2, https response error StatusCode: 301, RequestID: 6Z0S2J1TGVVP9MQW, HostID: xVP/onYEV1Rr/UHSVEhJZjVr5OVhDKzdmJYO2btiXZ+TrlXdea6j0Y1vIyyZG15/LMBakL/etdpvnJxecrZ6FA==, requested bucket from "us-west-2", actual location "ap-northeast-1"
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This guide will walk you through understanding and resolving this common issue.

Understanding the Error

The error message indicates a region mismatch between the specified S3 bucket region in your Terraform backend configuration and the actual location of the S3…