A Helm upgrade operation failed, leaving the release in a failed state. The application may be partially updated.
Fixes UPGRADE FAILED
helm upgrade RELEASE CHART -n NAMESPACEhelm upgrade RELEASE CHART -n NAMESPACEUPGRADE FAILED
When helm upgrade fails (e.g., validation error, image pull failure), the release enters a FAILED state. This is different from rolling back automatically—Helm stops the upgrade and leaves resources in an inconsistent state. You must either fix and retry the upgrade or explicitly rollback.
View the full error:
helm upgrade RELEASE CHART -n NAMESPACERead the error message for the root cause.
Test the chart locally:
helm template RELEASE CHART -n NAMESPACE -f values.yaml
helm lint CHARTFix any syntax errors.
Verify nodes have sufficient resources:
kubectl top nodes
kubectl describe nodes | grep -A5 "Allocatable"Revert to the last working version:
helm rollback RELEASE -n NAMESPACE
# Or rollback to specific revision
helm rollback RELEASE 2 -n NAMESPACEAfter fixing the underlying issue:
helm upgrade RELEASE CHART -n NAMESPACE -f fixed-values.yamlUse helm upgrade --dry-run first to validate changes without applying them. Implement pre-upgrade checks (Helm hooks) to validate readiness. For production, use --wait flag to ensure resources are ready before considering upgrade complete. Monitor release status with helm status RELEASE --wait. Document rollback procedures in your runbook.