kubernetes/kops · error

creating VMs client: %w

Error message

creating VMs client: %w

What it means

Same failure class as the interfaces client, but for compute.NewVirtualMachinesClient: the SDK refused to build the VMs management client, so newVerifierClient aborts before the verifier can query VM state.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/azure/verifier.go:317

		return nil, fmt.Errorf("empty resource group name")
	}
	if metadata.SubscriptionID == "" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("empty subscription ID")
	}
	klog.V(4).Infof("Azure verifier client using subscription %q resource group %q", metadata.SubscriptionID, metadata.ResourceGroupName)

	cred, err := azidentity.NewDefaultAzureCredential(nil)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("creating an identity: %w", err)
	}

	nisClient, err := network.NewInterfacesClient(metadata.SubscriptionID, cred, nil)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("creating interfaces client: %w", err)
	}
	vmsClient, err := compute.NewVirtualMachinesClient(metadata.SubscriptionID, cred, nil)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("creating VMs client: %w", err)
	}
	vmssVMsClient, err := compute.NewVirtualMachineScaleSetVMsClient(metadata.SubscriptionID, cred, nil)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("creating VMSSVMs client: %w", err)
	}

	return &client{
		subscriptionID: metadata.SubscriptionID,
		resourceGroup:  metadata.ResourceGroupName,
		nisClient:      nisClient,
		vmsClient:      vmsClient,
		vmssVMsClient:  vmssVMsClient,
	}, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Read the wrapped cause and fix the underlying input (usually subscription ID or credential)
2. Run make gomod / go mod tidy to repair the Azure SDK dependency set after a bump
3. Pin a known-good azure-sdk-for-go version used by kops if a new release regressed
4. Verify with a minimal snippet that compute.NewVirtualMachinesClient works with the same cred/subscription

if _, err := uuid.Parse(subscriptionID); err != nil {
	return fmt.Errorf("invalid subscription ID %q", subscriptionID)
}

_, err := newVerifierClient(ctx)
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "creating VMs client") {
	// inspect wrapped cause: bad input or SDK issue; repair deps or inputs, then retry
}

When it happens

Trigger: compute.NewVirtualMachinesClient(subscriptionID, cred, nil) returns non-nil err during newVerifierClient bootstrap, immediately after the interfaces client succeeded.

Common situations: Corrupted/partial go.sum or dependency replacement causing init failure; invalid client options struct; SDK regression after version bump; environment-specific init panic recovered as error.

Related errors

• creating VMs client: %w
• creating VMSS VMs client: %w
• creating interfaces client: %w
• DNS not implemented on azureCloud
• FindVPCInfo not implemented on azureCloud, use FindVNetInfo

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e7907deda016798d. Report an issue: GitHub.