How to fix UPGRADE FAILED in Kubernetes

What this error means

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.

Typical symptoms

• helm upgrade returns non-zero exit code
• helm status shows "FAILED" status
• Partial changes applied to cluster
• Pods may be in various states
• Next helm upgrade also fails
• Release cannot be deleted until fixed

Common causes

1. Invalid Helm chart values or syntax errors
2. Container image cannot be pulled
3. Insufficient resources (CPU, memory, disk)
4. Image registry authentication failure
5. PVC cannot be created or resized
6. Webhook validation rejection

How to fix "UPGRADE FAILED"

helm upgrade RELEASE CHART -n NAMESPACE

helm template RELEASE CHART -n NAMESPACE -f values.yaml
helm lint CHART

kubectl top nodes
kubectl describe nodes | grep -A5 "Allocatable"

helm rollback RELEASE -n NAMESPACE

# Or rollback to specific revision
helm rollback RELEASE 2 -n NAMESPACE

Advanced notes

Related errors

• Failed to connect to server: connection refused (HTTP/2)

  How to fix "HTTP/2 connection refused" error in Kubernetes

  HIGH

• missing request for cpu in container

  How to fix "missing request for cpu in container" in Kubernetes HPA

  HIGH

• error: invalid configuration

  How to fix "error: invalid configuration" in Kubernetes

  HIGH

Official resources & further reading

• 📚Kubernetes Official Documentation
• 📖
  Helm: helm upgrade(Official Docs)
• 📖
  Helm: helm rollback(Official Docs)
• 📖
  Helm: Chart Hooks(Official Docs)