kubernetes/kops · error

failed to parse %q: %s

Error message

failed to parse %q: %s

What it means

buildAzureBlobPath parses the azureblob:// URL with url.Parse and wraps any failure as "failed to parse %q: %s", including the underlying parse error text. The path never reached Azure.

Source

Thrown at util/pkg/vfs/context.go:576

		return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid openstack cloud storage path: %q", p)
	}

	bucket := strings.TrimSuffix(u.Host, "/")
	if bucket == "" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid swift path: %q", p)
	}

	return NewSwiftPath(c, bucket, u.Path)
}

func (c *VFSContext) buildAzureBlobPath(p string) (*AzureBlobPath, error) {
	if os.Getenv("AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT") != "" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("unset AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT; the storage account belongs in the URL:  azureblob://<account>/<container>/<key>")
	}

	u, err := url.Parse(p)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to parse %q: %s", p, err)
	}

	if u.Scheme != "azureblob" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid Azure Blob scheme: %q", p)
	}

	account := strings.TrimSuffix(u.Host, "/")
	if account == "" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("no storage account specified in %q; expected azureblob://<account>/<container>/<key>", p)
	}

	rest := strings.TrimPrefix(u.Path, "/")
	container, key, _ := strings.Cut(rest, "/")
	if container == "" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("no container specified in %q; expected azureblob://<account>/<container>/<key>", p)
	}

	return NewAzureBlobPath(c, account, container, key), nil

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Read the wrapped %s detail to see url.Parse's exact complaint
2. Percent-encode special characters (notably %, spaces, control chars) in the container/key portions
3. Trim whitespace/newlines from values read from files or environment before building the URL
4. Test the string with a tiny Go snippet calling url.Parse to reproduce the error locally

Example fix

// before
p := "azureblob://acct/container/sas?sig=%zz"
context.BuildVfsPath(p) // failed to parse
// after
p := "azureblob://acct/container/" + url.QueryEscape(sig)
context.BuildVfsPath(p)

if _, err := url.Parse(stateStore); err != nil { return fmt.Errorf("azureblob state store %q is not a valid URL: %v", stateStore, err) }

func isParsableAzureBlobURL(p string) bool { _, err := url.Parse(p); return err == nil }

if _, err := context.BuildVfsPath(p); err != nil { if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed to parse") { /* log err's wrapped url.Parse detail and the %q path */ } return err }

When it happens

Trigger: BuildVfsPath called with an azureblob:// URL that url.Parse rejects: invalid percent-escapes (e.g. "%zz"), embedded control characters or newlines, or other malformed URL syntax in the account/container/key.

Common situations: SAS tokens or keys containing % characters pasted unescaped into the URL; multi-line values from config files; secrets with special characters interpolated into the state-store string.

Understand the failure class

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• parsing etcd backup-store %q: %w
• parsing configStore.base %q: %w
• invalid Azure Blob scheme: %q
• no storage account specified in %q; expected azureblob://<ac
• no container specified in %q; expected azureblob://<account>

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ee5183c5b3f41ad8. Report an issue: GitHub.