is waiting to start ☸️ Kubernetes

Error from server (BadRequest): container "x" in pod "y" is waiting to start: ContainerCreating

kubectl logs has nothing to show yet — the container hasn’t started (still creating, pulling, or blocked).

Seen on: Kubernetes

Meaning

Logs exist only after a container starts. The reason after the colon tells you where it’s stuck: ContainerCreating (volumes, sandbox), PodInitializing (init containers), image pulling, or CreateContainerConfigError.

Common causes

  • Pod still pulling the image or mounting volumes
  • Init containers still running/failing
  • Container config error (missing Secret/ConfigMap)

⚡ Quick fix

  1. Use kubectl describe pod for events instead of logs
  2. For init containers: kubectl logs pod -c <init>
  3. Wait for the image pull to finish

Detailed fix by platform

Kubernetes

  1. bash
    kubectl describe pod web-0 | sed -n '/Events/,$p'
kubectl logs web-0 -c init-db

How to diagnose

  1. Reason — Text after "waiting to start:"
  2. Events — Pull/Mount/Config errors

🔧 Still not fixed?

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