This issue tracks the upstream Velero issue regarding backups that get stuck in a "Deleting" state after their TTL expires and never complete the deletion process.

Problem Description

When Velero backups reach their TTL expiration time, they transition to a "Deleting" state but fail to complete the deletion process. The deletion requests remain in "InProgress" status indefinitely, causing:

• Expired backups to remain visible and consume storage space
• Kopia snapshots and other backup artifacts to persist in storage
• Repeated log messages indicating the backup has expired but deletion cannot proceed

Symptoms

• Backups show STATUS: Deleting with errors after TTL expiration
• Deletion requests stuck with status "InProgress"
• Log messages repeating: "The request has status 'InProgress', skip."
• Storage snapshots remain accessible via Kopia CLI despite backup expiration

Technical Details

The garbage collection controller correctly identifies expired backups and creates deletion requests, but the backup deletion controller fails to complete the cleanup process. This affects:

• Kubernetes backup objects
• Pod volume snapshots
• Storage repository snapshots (Kopia/Restic)

Environment Impact

• Velero 1.15.2
• Kopia filesystem backup integration
• S3-compatible storage backends

Upstream Issue

GitHub Issue: https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/velero/issues/8837