failed to correctly update Outlier Detection config

Error message

failed to correctly update Outlier Detection config %v

What it means

Returned by handleClusterUpdate (line 251, wrapped via annotateErrorWithNodeID) when b.updateOutlierDetection() returns a non-nil error. This wraps the underlying outlier detection error with context and the node ID annotation. The underlying errors from updateOutlierDetection are errors 352-355 (builder not registered, parser missing, config parse failure, type assertion failure).

Solutions

Look at the wrapped inner error (the %v) to identify which sub-error (352-355) occurred and follow its specific remediation.
Ensure the outlier detection balancer is registered: import the full xds package.
Check for version skew between the management server and client — the OD config schema may have changed.
Validate the outlier detection fields in the management server's CDS resource (successRateMinimumHosts, interval, etc. must be within valid ranges).

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Try / catch

// This error surfaces from UpdateClientConnState in the CDS balancer.
// It propagates as TRANSIENT_FAILURE on the channel. Unwrap to find the
// specific outlier detection sub-error:
err := getBalancerError() // your observability layer
var odErr error
if errors.As(err, &odErr) {
    if strings.Contains(odErr.Error(), "Outlier Detection") {
        // inspect the OD config from the management server
    }
}

Prevention

Ensure the outlier detection balancer is imported and registered.
Validate outlier detection config fields in the management server before deploying.
Keep client and server grpc-go/xDS versions in sync to avoid schema mismatches.

When it happens

Trigger: A CDS cluster resource is received and validated, and during processing the outlier detection configuration embedded in the cluster resource fails to parse or build. The specific sub-error is one of: outlier detection builder not registered (352), builder lacks ConfigParser (353), ParseConfig fails on the OD JSON (354), or the parsed config has the wrong type (355).

Common situations: The management server sends an outlier detection configuration in the CDS cluster resource that the client's outlier detection balancer cannot parse (version skew). The outlier detection package is not imported/registered in the client binary. The OD config fields have invalid values (negative intervals, zero enforcement multiplier, etc.).

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of grpc/grpc-go@0c51461d27 (2026-08-11). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9546e3ddd366ab03. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at internal/xds/balancer/cdsbalancer/cdsbalancer.go:251

	clusterConfig := b.clusterConfigs[clusterName].Config

	var newPriorities []*priorityConfig
	switch clusterConfig.Cluster.ClusterType {
	case xdsresource.ClusterTypeEDS, xdsresource.ClusterTypeLogicalDNS:
		p := b.updatePriorityConfig(clusterName, &clusterConfig)
		newPriorities = append(newPriorities, p)
	case xdsresource.ClusterTypeAggregate:
		for _, leaf := range clusterConfig.AggregateConfig.LeafClusters {
			leafCluster := b.clusterConfigs[leaf]
			// Update priority config for leaf clusters.
			p := b.updatePriorityConfig(leaf, &leafCluster.Config)
			newPriorities = append(newPriorities, p)
		}
	}
	b.priorities = newPriorities

	if err := b.updateOutlierDetection(); err != nil {
		return b.annotateErrorWithNodeID(fmt.Errorf("failed to correctly update Outlier Detection config %v", err))
	}

	// The LB policy is configured by the root cluster.
	if err := json.Unmarshal(clusterConfig.Cluster.LBPolicy, &b.xdsLBPolicy); err != nil {
		return b.annotateErrorWithNodeID(fmt.Errorf("error unmarshalling xDS LB Policy: %v", err))
	}
	if err := b.updateChildConfig(); err != nil {
		return b.annotateErrorWithNodeID(err)
	}
	return nil
}

// updateChildConfig builds child policy configuration using endpoint addresses
// returned from the XDSConfig and child policy configuration.
//
// A child policy is created if one doesn't already exist. The newly built
// configuration is then pushed to the child policy.
func (b *cdsBalancer) updateChildConfig() error {

View on GitHub (pinned to 0c51461d27)