kubernetes/kops · error

error reading %s: %v

Error message

error reading %s: %v

What it means

readConfig() failed to read the raw bytes of the object file from the VFS path, and the failure was not os.IsNotExist (that is propagated as a sentinel for Find to convert to nil,nil). The path and underlying storage error are included in the message.

Source

Thrown at pkg/client/simple/vfsclientset/commonvfs.go:124

}

func (c *VFSClientBase) serialize(o runtime.Object) ([]byte, error) {
	var b bytes.Buffer
	err := c.encoder.Encode(o, &b)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error encoding object: %v", err)
	}

	return b.Bytes(), nil
}

func (c *VFSClientBase) readConfig(ctx context.Context, configPath vfs.Path) (runtime.Object, error) {
	data, err := configPath.ReadFile(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		if os.IsNotExist(err) {
			return nil, err
		}
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error reading %s: %v", configPath, err)
	}

	object, _, err := kopscodecs.Decode(data, nil)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error parsing %s: %v", configPath, err)
	}
	return object, nil
}

func (c *VFSClientBase) writeConfig(ctx context.Context, cluster *kops.Cluster, configPath vfs.Path, o runtime.Object, writeOptions ...vfs.WriteOption) error {
	data, err := c.serialize(o)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("error marshaling object: %v", err)
	}

	create := false
	for _, writeOption := range writeOptions {
		switch writeOption {

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Read the wrapped cause (%v) to identify the exact storage error.
2. Verify credentials and IAM read permissions on the state bucket.
3. Confirm the state store URL and region are correct.
4. Retry with backoff for transient network/throttling errors.

Example fix

// before
export KOPS_STATE_STORE=s3://old-bucket
// after
export KOPS_STATE_STORE=s3://my-cluster-state
aws s3 ls s3://my-cluster-state/  # confirm readable before running kops

if err := verifyStateStoreAccess(ctx, stateStore); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("state store not readable: %w", err)
}

o, err := client.Find(ctx, name)
if err != nil {
    if isRetryableStorageError(err) { return retryWithBackoff(...) }
    return fmt.Errorf("cannot read state for %q: %w", name, err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: Find/Get/readAll path where configPath.ReadFile(ctx) fails for reasons like AccessDenied, NoSuchBucket, connection reset, or permission errors on the file backend.

Common situations: Wrong KOPS_STATE_STORE bucket or region; revoked IAM credentials mid-operation; private object readable only by another account; S3/GCS outage or throttling.

Related errors

• error reading %s %q: %v
• error reading state store: %v
• error writing %s: %v
• error checking if configuration file %s exists already: %v
• error reading directory %q: %v

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1944c3b9d2dfa34b. Report an issue: GitHub.