Re: DROP ROLE blocked by pg_init_privs

Hi Tom,

On Wed, Nov 26, 2025 at 1:08 AM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> The missing step here is
>
> DROP OWNED BY test_role;
> ...
> See discussion here:
> ...

I had gone through that thread before posting, and yes, I mentioned "DROP
OWNED BY" in my original message. Is this what everyone is doing these
days? People just make sure there are no pg_depends/pg_shdepends that need
transferring, and then just blast the rest with "DROP OWNED BY"?

It just makes me uneasy to run a command with such potential for data loss
in order to remove a role. So much so that I have written a couple of
queries to manually clean up the system tables pg_init_privs/pg_shdepends
instead (see [1]). They seem to unblock dropping the role for now, but I'm
not even sure if I have missed something, or for how long they will keep
working.

I guess, my question is shouldn't there be a "REVOKE INITIAL ... FROM
<user>" command to drop just the initial privilege(-s) without potentially
nuking everything else owned by that user?

Thanks

1.
https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CAERznn-SBBqQ3YcdZk9U4mqVQPsVgLisi%3DEdFzY5Fb7hOQ4g_Q%40mail.gmail.com