another operation is in progress ☸️ Kubernetes

Error: UPGRADE FAILED: another operation (install/upgrade/rollback) is in progress

A previous Helm operation on this release was interrupted and left it in a pending-install/pending-upgrade state, so Helm refuses new operations.

Seen on: Kubernetes

Meaning

Cancelled CI jobs, timeouts or Ctrl-C during helm upgrade leave the latest revision as pending-*. Helm then blocks everything until you roll back (or remove the pending revision).

Common causes

  • Previous upgrade interrupted (CI cancelled, timeout)
  • Two pipelines deploying the same release concurrently

⚡ Quick fix

  1. helm history <release> to find the pending revision
  2. helm rollback <release> <last-deployed-revision>
  3. Avoid concurrent deploys (CI concurrency group)

Detailed fix by platform

Helm

  1. bash
    helm history web -n app
helm rollback web 12 -n app
# Helm 3.13+ alternative: helm upgrade --install ... --cleanup-on-fail

How to diagnose

  1. History — Latest revision status
  2. Concurrency — Other pipelines running?

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