# Tombstone warnings for system\_schema.tables, using Kubernetes, frequently creating and deleting tables

**URL:** <https://forum.scylladb.com/t/tombstone-warnings-for-system-schema-tables-using-kubernetes-frequently-creating-and-deleting-tables/4740>\
**Category:** ScyllaDB\
**Tags:** data-model, performance, kubernetes, raft, tombstone\
**Created:** [April 15, 2025, 4:23am UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/tombstone-warnings-for-system-schema-tables-using-kubernetes-frequently-creating-and-deleting-tables/4740 "2025-04-15T04:23:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Guy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.scylladb.com/guy/32/9_2.png) [@Guy](https://forum.scylladb.com/u/Guy)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 4:23am UTC](https://forum.scylladb.com/t/tombstone-warnings-for-system-schema-tables-using-kubernetes-frequently-creating-and-deleting-tables/4740/1 "2025-04-15T04:23:32Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> [**Originally from the User Slack**](https://scylladb-users.slack.com/)
> 
> ![Nick_Vladiceanu](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/2X/0/059db617d110231ced9a984559a6da500b22c526.png) **@Nick\_Vladiceanu:** Hey there!  
> We are seeing warnings regarding the Tombstones for `system_schema.tables`:
> 
> ```auto
> querier - Read 157 live rows and 24367 tombstones for system_schema.tables partition key "placeholder" {{1369899501664607956, pk{000f7265636f6d6d656e646174696f6e73}}} (see tombstone_warn_threshold)
> 
> ```
> 
> with that, we see some degradation in performance, mostly reads become slower. Could that be the cause?  
> We do create and delete tables quite often. Thanks
> 
> ![avi](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/1X/b5e08becda8d9df1abff1d3a2d9ffe1126ac3fc6.jpeg) **@avi:** What version are you running? Are you constantly creating and dropping tables?
> 
> It shouldn’t affect data-path performance.
> 
> ![Nick_Vladiceanu](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/2X/0/059db617d110231ced9a984559a6da500b22c526.png) **@Nick\_Vladiceanu:** we are currently using version `5.2.18` in Kubernetes. Every 2-3 hours a bunch of new tables get created and old ones deleted (~15 tables).  
> Any suggestion where to look into? We start observing performance degradation, like slower responses and clients report errors connecting to Scylla
> 
> ```auto
> ConnectionException('Host has been marked down or removed')
> 
> ```
> 
> ![avi](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/1X/b5e08becda8d9df1abff1d3a2d9ffe1126ac3fc6.jpeg) **@avi:** 5.2 is long out of support.
> 
> Newer versions don’t have that tombstone in schema problem  
> esp. once you enable raft for schema management
> 
> ![Nick_Vladiceanu](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/2X/0/059db617d110231ced9a984559a6da500b22c526.png) **@Nick\_Vladiceanu:** could that tombstone problem be the reason of read performance degradation?
> 
> ![avi](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/1X/b5e08becda8d9df1abff1d3a2d9ffe1126ac3fc6.jpeg) **@avi:** It’s unlikely. It slows down driver connection, not not regular reads  
> Maybe frequent driver connections are slowing down the cluster
> 
> ![Nick_Vladiceanu](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/2X/0/059db617d110231ced9a984559a6da500b22c526.png) **@Nick\_Vladiceanu:** ok, so the tombstone problem might be the reason of
> 
> ```auto
> ConnectionException('Host has been marked down or removed')
> 
> ```
> 
> and as a consequence, this might trigger a reconnect on the driver(s) which _might_ affect the performance of the cluster 🤔  
> Thanks a lot, I’m looking into what is the next version I could upgrade to. Is there any page with the list of supported versions of OS Scylla?
> 
> ![Guy](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/scylladb/original/1X/c3526ba4b34ff18302ea8d05feac40e4524d4577.png) **@Guy:** AFAIR, the last two major versions are supported, so that would now be 6.2. You can read more in this [FAQ](https://www.scylladb.com/source-available-faq/).