kubernetes/kops · error

error while waiting for instance to be running: %v

Error message

error while waiting for instance to be running: %v

What it means

WaitForInstanceRunning polls DescribeInstance while waiting for a master to boot; the describe call itself failed (permissions, invalid instance id, throttling) and the AWS error is wrapped.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/awsup/aws_apitarget.go:125

	}

	if len(extra) != 0 {
		klog.V(4).Infof("removing tags from %q: %v", ResourceArn, extra)
		err := t.Cloud.RemoveELBV2Tags(ResourceArn, extra)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error removing tags from ELBV2 %q: %v", ResourceArn, err)
		}
	}

	return nil
}

func (t *AWSAPITarget) WaitForInstanceRunning(instanceID string) error {
	attempt := 0
	for {
		instance, err := t.Cloud.DescribeInstance(instanceID)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error while waiting for instance to be running: %v", err)
		}

		if instance == nil {
			// TODO: Wait if we _just_ created the instance?
			return fmt.Errorf("instance not found while waiting for instance to be running")
		}

		state := "?"
		if instance.State != nil {
			state = string(instance.State.Name)
		}
		if state == "running" {
			return nil
		}
		klog.Infof("Waiting for instance %q to be running (current state is %q)", instanceID, state)

		time.Sleep(10 * time.Second)
		attempt++

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Check ec2:DescribeInstances permissions for the credentials in use
2. Verify the instance id still exists in the region
3. Retry the operation for transient errors

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/awsup/aws_apitarget.go:125 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/11ce609aa91f4c10. Report an issue: GitHub.