What causes "could not find flavor with name %v" in kubernetes/kops?

List available flavors with `openstack flavor list` and use an exact name in the InstanceGroup spec

could not find flavor with name %v

Error message

could not find flavor with name %v

What it means

getFlavor iterates the extracted flavors looking for one whose Name matches the requested name; if none matches, it returns this error. It means the configured instance type/flavor name does not exist in this OpenStack project/region.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/openstack/instance.go:393

func getFlavor(c OpenstackCloud, name string) (*flavors.Flavor, error) {
	opts := flavors.ListOpts{}
	pager := flavors.ListDetail(c.ComputeClient(), opts)
	page, err := pager.AllPages(context.TODO())
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to list flavors: %v", err)
	}

	fs, err := flavors.ExtractFlavors(page)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to extract flavors: %v", err)
	}
	for _, f := range fs {
		if f.Name == name {
			return &f, nil
		}
	}

	return nil, fmt.Errorf("could not find flavor with name %v", name)
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

List available flavors with `openstack flavor list` and use an exact name in the InstanceGroup spec
Correct the instanceType in the instance group (kops edit ig <ig>) and update the cluster
Ask the cloud admin to create/enable the required flavor if it genuinely should exist

Example fix

// before: kops instance group spec
machineType: m5.large
// after: a real OpenStack flavor name
machineType: m1.medium

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// resolve the flavor before applying the cluster/instance group
func validateFlavorExists(cl OpenstackCloud, name string) error {
    _, err := GetFlavor(cl, name)
    return err // 'could not find flavor with name' surfaces here
}

Prevention

Run `openstack flavor list` and copy exact flavor names into instance group specs
Never assume AWS/GCE machine types exist on OpenStack
Check flavor availability per region and per project (RBAC may hide flavors)
Validate machineType in CI with a kops cluster template linter

When it happens

Trigger: GetFlavor called with a flavor name that does not exist in the target Nova deployment — typically the instanceType from the kops InstanceGroup does not match any flavor name in the cloud.

Common situations: Copy-pasting AWS instance types (e.g. m5.large) into an OpenStack cluster spec; flavor renamed or absent in a different region/project; flavors not exposed to the project.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a0ba826cbb6956f5. Report an issue: GitHub.