helm/helm · error

failed reloading chart after repo update: %w

Error message

failed reloading chart after repo update: %w

What it means

Only reachable with --dependency-update: the downloader.Manager rewrote the chart's dependencies on disk, then the CLI reloads the chart with loader.Load(cp) (pkg/cmd/install.go:327-330). That reload failed, meaning the freshly updated dependency state is not a loadable chart — broken downloaded tarball, unexpected file layout, or concurrent modification of the chart directory.

Source

Thrown at pkg/cmd/install.go:330

			man := &downloader.Manager{
				Out:              out,
				ChartPath:        cp,
				Keyring:          client.Keyring,
				SkipUpdate:       false,
				Getters:          p,
				RepositoryConfig: settings.RepositoryConfig,
				RepositoryCache:  settings.RepositoryCache,
				ContentCache:     settings.ContentCache,
				Debug:            settings.Debug,
				RegistryClient:   client.GetRegistryClient(),
				SourceDateEpoch:  sourceDateEpoch,
			}
			if err := man.Update(); err != nil {
				return nil, err
			}
			// Reload the chart with the updated Chart.lock file.
			if chartRequested, err = loader.Load(cp); err != nil {
				return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed reloading chart after repo update: %w", err)
			}
		}
	}

	client.Namespace = settings.Namespace()

	// Create context and prepare the handle of SIGTERM
	ctx := context.Background()
	ctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(ctx)

	// Set up channel on which to send signal notifications.
	// We must use a buffered channel or risk missing the signal
	// if we're not ready to receive when the signal is sent.
	cSignal := make(chan os.Signal, 2)
	signal.Notify(cSignal, os.Interrupt, syscall.SIGTERM)
	go func() {
		<-cSignal
		fmt.Fprintf(out, "Release %s has been cancelled.\n", args[0])

View on GitHub (pinned to 2a29f1770b)

Solutions

1. Delete charts/ and Chart.lock in the chart and re-run `helm dependency update` from scratch
2. Inspect the wrapped loader error to identify which file/archive failed to load
3. Verify the dependency repositories are healthy (manual `helm pull` of the dependency) and check disk space

Example fix

# before
helm install myrel ./chart --dependency-update
# error: failed reloading chart after repo update: ...

# after
rm -rf ./chart/charts ./chart/Chart.lock
helm dependency update ./chart
helm install myrel ./chart

if err := runInstall(args); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed reloading chart after repo update") {
        // dependency state on disk is not loadable: clean and rebuild from scratch
        os.RemoveAll(filepath.Join(chartPath, "charts"))
        os.Remove(filepath.Join(chartPath, "Chart.lock"))
        return errors.New("chart deps corrupted after update; cleaned charts/ and Chart.lock, re-run helm dependency update")
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: `helm install --dependency-update` where a dependency resolves to a corrupted/malformed tgz; the chart directory is modified by another process between update and reload; disk-full produces a truncated charts/*.tgz.

Common situations: Flaky or proxied chart mirrors serving partial downloads; parallel CI jobs sharing a chart checkout; filesystem issues truncating the downloaded archive.

Related errors

• chart dependencies processing failed: %w
• an error occurred while checking for chart dependencies. You
• chart yaml not in base directory
• no files in chart archive
• only unpacked charts can be updated

AI-assisted analysis of helm/helm@2a29f1770b (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/302c22e4300451b9. Report an issue: GitHub.