Cloudformation stack refactor fails with templateBody size constraint error

[SorinFlueras]

Describe the bug

Issue Summary

The aws cloudformation create-stack-refactor command executes successfully and returns a StackRefactorId. However, when running aws cloudformation describe-stack-refactor on the returned StackRefactorId, the following error appears:

{
    "StackRefactorId": "xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx",
    "StackIds": [
        "arn:aws:cloudformation:region:account-id:stack/my-stack-1/xxxxx",
        "arn:aws:cloudformation:region:account-id:stack/my-stack-2/xxxxx"
    ],
    "ExecutionStatus": "UNAVAILABLE",
    "Status": "CREATE_FAILED",
    "StatusReason": "arn:aws:cloudformation:region:account-id:stack/my-stack-1/xxxxx:  1 validation error detected: Value '{Cloudformation Template Content}' at 'templateBody' failed to satisfy constraint: Member must have length less than or equal to 51200"
}

This happens even when TemplateBody is not passed and only TemplateURL is used.

Command used

aws cloudformation create-stack-refactor \
  --stack-definitions \
    StackName=my-stack-1,TemplateURL=https://example-bucket.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/infrastructure.yaml \
    StackName=my-stack-2,TemplateURL=https://example-bucket.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/database.yaml \
  --enable-stack-creation

(My templates in S3 are 59.1 KB and 2.7 KB.)

Regression Issue

• Select this option if this issue appears to be a regression.

Expected Behavior

• The stack refactor operation should proceed successfully because TemplateBody is not provided.
• Since TemplateURL is being used, the 51200-character limit should not apply.
• The describe-stack-refactor command should not fail due to a template size limitation.

Current Behavior

Command fails as described in Issue summary

Reproduction Steps

Run the aws cloudformation create-stack-refactor command using TemplateURL from S3 with a size bigger than 50 KB.

Possible Solution

No response

Additional Information/Context

No response

CLI version used

aws-cli/2.24.2 Python/3.12.6 Darwin/24.3.0 exe/x86_64

Environment details (OS name and version, etc.)

macOS Sequoia 15.3

[seanmurph]

+1 experiencing this issue with all templates in S3. (aws-cli/2.24.4 Python/3.12.6 Darwin/24.3.0 exe/x86_64). I tried using both HTTPs and S3 URIs.

[saeidp]

We are also experiencing the same issue

[nanookmetaal]

Experiencing the same issue - aws-cli/2.24.7 Python/3.12.6 Linux/5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-WSL2 exe/x86_64.ubuntu.24

[khushail]

Thanks for reporting this @SorinFlueras, I am able to reproduce the issue and can see getting error with template size >50kb.
However I did not find any doc that mentions this limit in size in neither Cloudformation API doc nor in CLI Docs. Investigating further to find the root cause. Will share updates.

[khushail]

So this is whats mentioned in AWS Docs -https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/cloudformation-limits.html

Stack refactoring -https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSCloudFormation/latest/UserGuide/stack-refactoring.html

[khushail]

.Seems to be a service API Issue, created an internal ticket with them for further analysis -P202904574

[LoganB99]

On a similar note, my first command doesn't succeed at all.

Unable to parse response (syntax error: line 1, column 0), invalid XML received. Further retries may succeed:
b'HTTP content length exceeded 251904 bytes.'

One file is 203 KB and the other is 41 KB.

[humanonymous]

@RyanFitzSimmonsAK can this get a higher priority please? We are stuck in the middle of migration because of this bug.

[RyanFitzSimmonsAK]

@RyanFitzSimmonsAK can this get a higher priority please? We are stuck in the middle of migration because of this bug.

We have not heard back from the service team yet. I just reached out again and emphasized that this is blocking people. I'll let you know when I have any updates.