micro/go-micro · error · ErrNotFound

service not found

Error message

service not found

What it means

registry.ErrNotFound is the sentinel error returned by GetService (and lookups like next/serviceWithName/Load) when no service with the requested name exists in the registry. It is the library's contract for 'unknown service name'.

Solutions

1. Verify the exact service name matches what the server registered (check name, version, namespace)
2. Compare with errors.Equal/== against registry.ErrNotFound and implement retry-with-backoff until the service appears
3. Check the target service is running and successfully registered (inspect registry contents directly)
4. Increase or verify TTL refresh/heartbeats so registrations don't expire

Example fix

// before
svc, err := registry.GetService("grettr") // typo, err not checked against sentinel
// after
if err == registry.ErrNotFound {
  time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond) // backoff and retry
  svc, err = registry.GetService("greeter")
}

_, err := reg.GetService(name)
if err == registry.ErrNotFound {
  // service absent; wait or check registration before proceeding
}

func isNotFound(err error) bool {
  return errors.Is(err, registry.ErrNotFound)
}

svc, err := reg.GetService("greeter")
if errors.Is(err, registry.ErrNotFound) {
  // retry with backoff or surface 'unknown service' to caller
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling registry.GetService("name") for a service never registered; calling after the service deregistered or its TTL/lease expired; registry cache missing the entry (e.g. cache not yet populated); tests calling Read/Load for a missing fixture service.

Common situations: Typo in the service name or mismatched namespace/environment prefixes; client started before the target service registered (startup race); etcd/consul entries evicted due to TTL expiry or network partition; switching registries between environments.

Related errors

• failed to discover services
• failed to register service
• not found
• agent: checkpointed run not found
• could not get next

AI-assisted analysis of micro/go-micro@24529f1404 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/37e5c28e7e5952bc. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at registry/registry.go:10

// Package registry is an interface for service discovery
package registry

import (
	"errors"
)

var (
	// Not found error when GetService is called.
	ErrNotFound = errors.New("service not found")
	// Watcher stopped error when watcher is stopped.
	ErrWatcherStopped = errors.New("watcher stopped")
)

// The registry provides an interface for service discovery
// and an abstraction over varying implementations
// {consul, etcd, zookeeper, ...}.
type Registry interface {
	Init(...Option) error
	Options() Options
	Register(*Service, ...RegisterOption) error
	Deregister(*Service, ...DeregisterOption) error
	GetService(string, ...GetOption) ([]*Service, error)
	ListServices(...ListOption) ([]*Service, error)
	Watch(...WatchOption) (Watcher, error)
	String() string
}

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