Flux CD Troubleshooting
Diagnose Flux CD reconciliation failures and errors in GitOps environments.
Keywords
flux, fluxcd, troubleshooting, debug, error, failed, failure, reconciliation, kustomization, helmrelease, source, gitrepository, ocirepository, artifact, health check, diagnose, resolve, fix
When to Use This Skill
- Flux resources show
Ready: Falsestatus - Reconciliation errors appear in logs
- Deployments are not syncing from Git
- HelmRelease installations are failing
- Source artifacts are not being fetched
- Image automation is not updating tags
Related Skills
- flux-operations - Suspend/resume/reconcile operations
- flux-gitops-patterns - Architecture and patterns
- k8s-platform-operations - Incident response procedures
Quick Reference
| Task | Command |
|---|---|
| Check Flux health | flux check |
| View all errors | flux logs -A --level=error |
| Get all status | flux get all -A |
| Warning events | kubectl get events -n flux-system --field-selector type=Warning |
Diagnostic Workflow
Is the resource Ready?
├─ Yes → Check if correct version/revision deployed
└─ No → Is the source Ready?
├─ Yes → Check Kustomization/HelmRelease logs
│ ├─ dry-run failed → Fix YAML syntax in Git
│ ├─ health check timeout → Check pod logs/resources
│ └─ dependency not ready → Fix parent first
└─ No → Check source credentials/connectivity
├─ authentication failed → Update deploy key/secret
├─ checkout failed → Verify branch/tag exists
└─ artifact not found → Check repository URL
Diagnostic Commands
1. Check Controller Health
flux check
2. View Error Logs
flux logs --all-namespaces --level=error
3. Get Warning Events
kubectl get events -n flux-system --field-selector type=Warning
4. Inspect Resource Status
flux get kustomizations -A
flux get helmreleases -A
flux get sources all -A
5. Controller-Specific Logs
kubectl logs -n flux-system deploy/source-controller
kubectl logs -n flux-system deploy/kustomize-controller
kubectl logs -n flux-system deploy/helm-controller
kubectl logs -n flux-system deploy/notification-controller
kubectl logs -n flux-system deploy/image-reflector-controller
kubectl logs -n flux-system deploy/image-automation-controller
Error Pattern Reference
| Error Pattern | Cause | GitOps Solution |
|---|---|---|
failed to checkout |
Git authentication or network | Verify deploy keys/credentials |
dry-run failed: Invalid |
Invalid manifest YAML | Fix syntax in Git repository |
health check timeout |
Pods not becoming ready | Check resource limits, images |
dependency not ready |
Parent Kustomization failed | Fix upstream dependency first |
artifact not found |
Source not synced | Check source status, reconcile |
Unsupported value |
Invalid field value | Correct the value in Git |
UNAUTHORIZED |
Registry auth failed | Check imagePullSecrets |
MANIFEST_UNKNOWN |
OCI tag doesn't exist | Verify tag in registry |
OCI Repository Troubleshooting
Common OCI Issues
flux get sources oci -A
kubectl logs -n flux-system deploy/source-controller | grep -i oci
kubectl get secret -n flux-system flux-system -o jsonpath='{.data.\.dockerconfigjson}' | base64 -d
OCI Error Patterns
| Error | Cause | Diagnostic |
|---|---|---|
UNAUTHORIZED |
Invalid credentials | Check docker-registry secret exists and is not expired; recommend updating secret |
MANIFEST_UNKNOWN |
Tag not found | Verify tag exists in registry |
DENIED |
Permission denied | Check registry permissions for the service account |
NAME_UNKNOWN |
Repository not found | Verify repository path in OCIRepository spec |
Image Automation Troubleshooting
Check Image Policies
flux get images policy -A
flux get images repository -A
flux get images update -A
Image Automation Errors
| Error | Cause | Diagnostic |
|---|---|---|
no new images found |
Filter too restrictive | Check semver/regex pattern against available tags; recommend adjusting filter |
access denied |
Registry auth | Check image pull secrets configuration |
failed to push |
Git write access | Check if deploy key has write permission |
Webhook/Notification Debugging
kubectl logs -n flux-system deploy/notification-controller
flux get alerts -A
flux get alert-providers -A
kubectl logs -n flux-system deploy/notification-controller | grep -i receiver
Structured Log Analysis
{
"level": "error",
"ts": "2024-01-15T09:36:41.286Z",
"controllerGroup": "kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io",
"controllerKind": "Kustomization",
"name": "resource-name",
"namespace": "namespace",
"msg": "Reconciliation failed after 2s, next try in 5m0s",
"revision": "main@sha1:abc123",
"error": "specific error message"
}
GitOps Principles for Troubleshooting
- Never fix directly in cluster - Identify root cause, fix in Git
- Suspend before debugging - Prevent Flux from reverting test changes
- Check the full dependency chain - Infrastructure before apps
- Verify source availability - Git repos and registries must be accessible
- Review recent commits - Issues often correlate with recent changes
MCP Tools Available
When the Flux MCP server is connected:
mcp__flux-operator-mcp__get_flux_instance- Get Flux installation statusmcp__flux-operator-mcp__get_kubernetes_logs- Get pod logsmcp__flux-operator-mcp__get_kubernetes_resources- Query resourcesmcp__flux-operator-mcp__search_flux_docs- Search Flux documentation
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