kubernetes/kops · info

error encoding version spec: %v

Error message

error encoding version spec: %v

What it means

ChannelVersion.Encode marshals the ChannelVersion struct to JSON so SetInstalledVersion can store it as a namespace annotation, wrapping json.Marshal failures. With only *string/string/int fields, Marshal cannot realistically fail, making this defensive/unreachable.

Source

Thrown at channels/pkg/channels/channel_version.go:109

			continue
		}

		channelVersion, err := ParseChannelVersion(v)
		if err != nil {
			klog.Warningf("failed to parse annotation %q=%q", k, v)
			continue
		}

		name := strings.TrimPrefix(k, AnnotationPrefix)
		addons[name] = channelVersion
	}
	return addons
}

func (c *ChannelVersion) Encode() (string, error) {
	data, err := json.Marshal(c)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("error encoding version spec: %v", err)
	}
	return string(data), nil
}

func (c *Channel) AnnotationName() string {
	return AnnotationPrefix + c.Name
}

func (c *ChannelVersion) replaces(name string, existing *ChannelVersion) bool {
	klog.V(6).Infof("Checking existing config for %q: %v compared to new channel: %v", name, existing, c)

	if c.Id != existing.Id {
		klog.V(4).Infof("cluster has different ids for %q (%q vs %q); will replace", name, c.Id, existing.Id)
		return true
	}

	if c.ManifestHash != existing.ManifestHash {
		klog.V(4).Infof("cluster has different ManifestHash for %q (%q vs %q); will replace", name, c.ManifestHash, existing.ManifestHash)

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Retry the operation.
2. Rebuild/reinstall the kops/channels binary.
3. If reproducible, capture the ChannelVersion value and file an upstream issue.

encoded, err := cv.Encode()
if err != nil {
	// marshal of plain fields cannot fail; treat as internal error and retry
	retryWithBackoff(2, func() error { encoded, err = cv.Encode(); return err })
}

When it happens

Trigger: SetInstalledVersion -> version.Encode() where json.Marshal(c) fails. Given the plain-field ChannelVersion struct, only memory/allocator failures could produce this error.

Common situations: Not user-triggerable in practice; would indicate a corrupted runtime or binary rather than a configuration problem.

Related errors

• error hashing manifest: %v
• error hashing manifest location: %v
• converting headers to json: %w
• converting token to json: %w
• error parsing version spec %q

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9a953034ad6d7bd6. Report an issue: GitHub.