kubernetes/kops · error

getting GVR namespaces: %w

Error message

getting GVR namespaces: %w

What it means

getGVRNamespaces() cross-products the discovered API resources with the namespace list to build the per-(GVR,namespace) dump jobs, and parses each resourceList.GroupVersion with schema.ParseGroupVersion. Its error is wrapped as "getting GVR namespaces: %w". In practice the only failure source is ParseGroupVersion rejecting a malformed GroupVersion string in a discovery response.

Source

Thrown at pkg/dump/resourcedumper.go:123

		return fmt.Errorf("listing namespaces: %w", err)
	}

	discoveryClient, err := discovery.NewDiscoveryClientForConfig(d.k8sConfig)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("creating discovery client: %w", err)
	}

	resourceLists, err := discoveryClient.ServerPreferredResources()
	var discoveryErr *discovery.ErrGroupDiscoveryFailed
	if errors.As(err, &discoveryErr) {
		klog.Warningf("using incomplete list of API groups: %v", discoveryErr)
	} else if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("listing server preferred resources: %w", err)
	}

	gvrNamespaces, err := getGVRNamespaces(resourceLists, namespaces.Items)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("getting GVR namespaces: %w", err)
	}

	jobs := make(chan gvrNamespace, len(gvrNamespaces))
	results := make(chan resourceDumpResult, len(gvrNamespaces))

	for i := 0; i < resourceDumpConcurrency; i++ {
		go d.dumpGVRNamespaces(ctx, jobs, results)
	}

	var dumpErr error

	for _, gvrn := range gvrNamespaces {
		jobs <- gvrn
	}
	close(jobs)

	for i := 0; i < len(gvrNamespaces); i++ {
		result := <-results

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Identify the offending GroupVersion string from the wrapped error message and find which API server/CRD publishes it.
2. Remove or fix the misbehaving aggregated API server / CRD publisher.
3. Update the cluster's components (a valid apiserver never emits malformed group-versions).

func isParseGroupVersionError(err error) bool {
	// ParseGroupVersion returns a plain error naming the bad GroupVersion string
	var pge *schema.GroupVersion
	_ = pge
	return err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "unexpected GroupVersion string")
}

if err := dumper.DumpResources(ctx); err != nil {
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "getting GVR namespaces") {
		// discovery payload has a malformed group-version:
		// identify and remove/fix the offending aggregated API server or CRD
	}
	return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: A discovery entry's GroupVersion string is malformed (not "group/version" or "v1"), making schema.ParseGroupVersion fail. This is essentially never seen against a healthy apiserver.

Common situations: A broken or third-party aggregated API server returning an invalid GroupVersion in its discovery document; proxy/middleware mangling discovery payloads; custom servers used in tests.

Related errors

• unable to find resource for %s: %w
• error querying kubernetes version: %v
• cannot parse kubernetes version %q
• error getting rest mapping for %v: %w
• unknown scope for gvk %s: %q

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fa61c3e774697b41. Report an issue: GitHub.