<p>This error fires when a DROP PARTITION statement would remove every partition in a table; MySQL blocks the change and advises dropping the entire table instead.</p>
<p>MySQL Error 1508 ER_DROP_LAST_PARTITION appears when a DROP PARTITION command would delete the final partition of a partitioned table. MySQL blocks this to protect data. Fix it by converting the table to non-partitioned with ALTER TABLE REMOVE PARTITIONING or simply run DROP TABLE if you intend full deletion.</p>
Cannot remove all partitions, use DROP TABLE instead
Error 1508 is raised when a DROP PARTITION or ALTER TABLE ... DROP PARTITION statement would remove every existing partition from a partitioned table. Because the table would be left without partitions, MySQL halts the operation and returns ER_DROP_LAST_PARTITION with SQLSTATE HY000.
Partition metadata is integral to the storage engine. A table without partitions is invalid, so the server forces you either to remove partitioning cleanly or drop the table entirely. This safeguard prevents accidental data loss and keeps dictionary data consistent.
The error appears whenever the last remaining partition is targeted by DROP PARTITION or when a WHERE clause inside ALTER TABLE ... REMOVE PARTITIONING eliminates all partitions. It also occurs if a script loops through partitions and forgets to stop before the final piece.
Choose one of two paths: convert the table to a non-partitioned structure using ALTER TABLE REMOVE PARTITIONING, or intentionally delete the table with DROP TABLE. Both approaches satisfy the server requirement that no table may exist without a valid storage layout.
Plan partition maintenance with metadata queries such as INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PARTITIONS to verify remaining partitions. Automate checks in deployment scripts and adopt version-controlled DDL in a tool like Galaxy to review changes before execution.
Galaxy’s SQL editor surfaces partition metadata inline and lets teams peer-review DROP PARTITION statements. Its AI copilot warns when a command would remove the last partition, reducing production outages.
If only one partition exists, issuing DROP PARTITION partition_name immediately triggers Error 1508.
ETL or cleanup jobs that purge old partitions can accidentally remove the latest partition if date calculations are wrong.
If the clause matches all partitions, MySQL refuses and returns the error.
Moving rows to a new table and then dropping partitions without verifying remaining ones leads straight to Error 1508.
Raised when attempting to drop a partition that does not exist in the table.
Occurs when adding a partition with a name already used by an existing partition.
Appears when partition definitions are missing VALUES clauses for RANGE or LIST partitioning.
Triggers when truncating a partitioned table that is referenced by a foreign key.
No. The command is blocked before any partition is removed, so data remains intact until you run a valid statement.
MySQL does not provide a setting to bypass this protection. You must either keep at least one partition or drop the table.
The error exists in all modern MySQL versions that support partitioning, starting from 5.1 up through the latest 8.x releases.
Query INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PARTITIONS or use SHOW CREATE TABLE to list current partition definitions.
.avif)
.avif){kind=logo}
