argoproj/argo-workflows · error

Multiple archived workflows found with name '%s': %s (Crea

Error message

Multiple archived workflows found with name '%s':
  %s (Created: %s, Finished: %s)
Please specify the UID.

What it means

resolveUID maps a workflow name to its unique UID in the archive. If multiple archived workflows share the same name (Argo permits name reuse across archive entries), it cannot disambiguate and returns an error listing each match's UID, created and finished timestamps, asking the user to specify the UID.

Source

Thrown at cmd/argo/commands/archive/util.go:68

		resp, err = serviceClient.ListArchivedWorkflows(ctx, req)
		if err != nil {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("list archived workflows: %w", err)
		}
		matches = append(matches, resp.Items...)
	}

	if len(matches) == 0 {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("archived workflow '%s' not found", identifier)
	}

	if len(matches) > 1 {
		var msg strings.Builder
		fmt.Fprintf(&msg, "Multiple archived workflows found with name '%s':\n", identifier)
		for _, wf := range matches {
			fmt.Fprintf(&msg, "  %s (Created: %s, Finished: %s)\n", wf.UID, humanize.Timestamp(wf.CreationTimestamp.Time), humanize.Timestamp(wf.Status.FinishedAt.Time))
		}
		msg.WriteString("Please specify the UID.")
		return "", errors.New(msg.String())
	}

	return string(matches[0].UID), nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 35bff19146)

Solutions

1. Use the UID directly: argo archive retry <uid> --uid.
2. Copy one of the UIDs from the error message listing the matches.
3. Narrow with --selector if applicable so fewer workflows match.

Example fix

// before
argo archive retry daily-job   # ambiguous
// after
argo archive retry a0eebc99-9c0b-4ef8-bb6d-6bb9bd380a11 --uid

# resolve the UID first, non-interactively
argo archive list --selector workflows.argoproj.io/name=daily-job -o name

if ! argo archive retry "$name" 2>err.txt; then
  uid=$(grep -oE '[0-9a-f-]{36}' err.txt | head -1)
  argo archive retry "$uid" --uid
fi

When it happens

Trigger: Running 'argo archive retry/resubmit <name>' where two or more archived workflows have identical metadata.name, e.g. a workflow named 'daily-job' that was run many times with generateName collisions or re-archived copies.

Common situations: Repeated retries of the same named workflow archived multiple times; environments without generateName where the same name was resubmitted; shared clusters with a broad archive.

Related errors

• requires either selector or workflow
• resolve UID: %w
• resolve UID: %w
• resolve UID: %w
• resolve UID: %w

AI-assisted analysis of argoproj/argo-workflows@35bff19146 (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ca83da445d447611. Report an issue: GitHub.