What causes "status is not yet ok: %s" in ory/hydra?

Wait longer / increase the retry deadline — the service may simply still be booting

status is not yet ok: %s

Error message

status is not yet ok: %s

What it means

This error comes from the httpx WaitFor helper: it polls an HTTP endpoint and parses the JSON body with gjson; if the top-level "status" field is not the string "ok", it returns 'status is not yet ok: <body>'. It means the service responded, but reports it is not ready/healthy yet (or the body shape is unexpected).

Source

Thrown at oryx/httpx/wait_for.go:44

		if err != nil {
			return err
		}

		res, err := client.Do(req)
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}
		defer func() {
			_ = res.Body.Close()
		}()

		body, err := io.ReadAll(res.Body)
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}

		if gjson.GetBytes(body, "status").String() != "ok" {
			return errors.Errorf("status is not yet ok: %s", body)
		}

		return nil
	},
		append([]retry.Option{
			retry.DelayType(retry.BackOffDelay),
			retry.Delay(time.Second),
			retry.MaxDelay(time.Second * 2),
			retry.Attempts(20),
		}, opts...)...)
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4174065ffb)

Solutions

Wait longer / increase the retry deadline — the service may simply still be booting
Check the target service's logs to see why status is not ok (failed migrations, bad config)
Verify you are polling the correct health/status endpoint and port
Inspect the body printed in the error to see the actual status value reported

Example fix

// before
httpx.WaitFor(ctx, "http://localhost:4434/admin/status") // fails while service initializes
// after
require.Eventually(t, func() bool {
    resp, err := http.Get("http://localhost:4434/admin/status")
    return err == nil && resp.StatusCode == http.StatusOK
}, 30*time.Second, 500*time.Millisecond)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

func isReady(url string) bool {
    body, err := http.Get(url)
    if err != nil { return false }
    defer body.Body.Close()
    b, _ := io.ReadAll(body.Body)
    return gjson.GetBytes(b, "status").String() == "ok"
}

Try / catch

err := httpx.WaitFor(ctx, url)
if err != nil {
    var statusErr = err // body is embedded in the message
    log.Printf("service not ready after retries: %v", statusErr)
    // inspect service logs before giving up
}

Prevention

Give services enough retry time at startup (increase backoff/deadline)
Poll the documented health/status endpoint on the right port
Check the target service logs when this error persists
Verify the endpoint actually returns JSON with a top-level "status" field

When it happens

Trigger: Calling httpx.WaitFor (or a library startup that uses it) against an endpoint whose JSON body has status != "ok" at that moment; retries continue via retry.BackOffDelay until deadline.

Common situations: Waiting for a service (e.g. Kratos/Oathkeeper/hydra dev server or a migration endpoint) that is still starting up; hitting the wrong port or wrong health endpoint; service permanently degraded so the wait times out with this as the last error.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of ory/hydra@4174065ffb (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d076eddcf6ee5ebb. Report an issue: GitHub.