-- It's Ok to CLEAR column when there are columns with default expression depending on it. -- But it's not Ok to DROP such column. DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test; CREATE TABLE test (x UInt8, y UInt8 DEFAULT x + 1) ENGINE = MergeTree ORDER BY tuple(); INSERT INTO test (x) VALUES (1), (2), (3); SELECT * FROM test ORDER BY x, y; ALTER TABLE test CLEAR COLUMN x; SELECT * FROM test ORDER BY x, y; ALTER TABLE test DROP COLUMN x; -- { serverError 44 } DROP TABLE test; DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test; CREATE TABLE test (x UInt8, y UInt8 MATERIALIZED x + 1) ENGINE = MergeTree ORDER BY tuple(); INSERT INTO test (x) VALUES (1), (2), (3); SELECT x, y FROM test ORDER BY x, y; ALTER TABLE test CLEAR COLUMN x; SELECT x, y FROM test ORDER BY x, y; ALTER TABLE test DROP COLUMN x; -- { serverError 44 } DROP TABLE test; DROP TABLE IF EXISTS test; CREATE TABLE test (x UInt8, y UInt8 ALIAS x + 1, z String DEFAULT 'Hello') ENGINE = MergeTree ORDER BY tuple(); INSERT INTO test (x) VALUES (1), (2), (3); SELECT x, y FROM test ORDER BY x, y; ALTER TABLE test CLEAR COLUMN x; SELECT x, y FROM test ORDER BY x, y; ALTER TABLE test DROP COLUMN x; -- { serverError 44 } DROP TABLE test; -- The original report from Mikhail Petrov DROP TABLE IF EXISTS Test; set allow_deprecated_syntax_for_merge_tree=1; create table Test (impression_id String,impression_id_compressed FixedString(16) DEFAULT UUIDStringToNum(substring(impression_id, 1, 36)), impression_id_hashed UInt16 DEFAULT reinterpretAsUInt16(impression_id_compressed), event_date Date ) ENGINE = MergeTree(event_date, impression_id_hashed, (event_date, impression_id_hashed), 8192); alter table Test clear column impression_id in partition '202001'; DROP TABLE Test;