vitessio/vitess · error

GetVersion(%s) failed: %v

Error message

GetVersion(%s) failed: %v

What it means

ValidateShard fetches the vttablet version of the shard's primary via s.GetVersion. Failure is wrapped as "GetVersion(%s) failed: %v" with the primary tablet alias, and validation aborts since the primary version is the comparison baseline.

Source

Thrown at go/vt/vtctl/grpcvtctldserver/server.go:5422

	defer panicHandler(&err)

	shard, err := s.ts.GetShard(ctx, req.Keyspace, req.Shard)
	if err != nil {
		err = fmt.Errorf("GetShard(%s) failed: %v", req.Shard, err)
		return nil, err
	}

	if !shard.HasPrimary() {
		err = fmt.Errorf("no primary in shard %v/%v", req.Keyspace, req.Shard)
		return nil, err
	}

	log.Info(fmt.Sprintf("Gathering version for primary %v", topoproto.TabletAliasString(shard.PrimaryAlias)))
	primaryVersion, err := s.GetVersion(ctx, &vtctldatapb.GetVersionRequest{
		TabletAlias: shard.PrimaryAlias,
	})
	if err != nil {
		err = fmt.Errorf("GetVersion(%s) failed: %v", topoproto.TabletAliasString(shard.PrimaryAlias), err)
		return nil, err
	}

	aliases, err := s.ts.FindAllTabletAliasesInShard(ctx, req.Keyspace, req.Shard)
	if err != nil {
		err = fmt.Errorf("FindAllTabletAliasesInShard(%s, %s) failed: %v", req.Keyspace, req.Shard, err)
		return nil, err
	}

	er := concurrency.AllErrorRecorder{}
	wg := sync.WaitGroup{}
	for _, alias := range aliases {
		if topoproto.TabletAliasEqual(alias, shard.PrimaryAlias) {
			continue
		}

		wg.Add(1)
		go func(alias *topodatapb.TabletAlias) {

View on GitHub (pinned to 01a25a7d17)

Solutions

1. Check the primary tablet's health (vtctldclient GetTablet <alias>; ping the tablet's gRPC port).
2. Restart vttablet on the primary host if the process is down.
3. If the alias is stale, fix the shard record via a reparent before re-running validation.

tab, err := ts.GetTablet(ctx, shard.PrimaryAlias); if err != nil { return err }; conn, err := tmc.Ping(ctx, tab.Tablet); if err != nil { /* primary unreachable — repair before GetVersion */ }

ver, err := s.GetVersion(ctx, req); if err != nil { if isTabletRPCError(err) { /* wait & retry with backoff; tablet may be restarting */ } return fmt.Errorf("GetVersion failed: %w", err) }

When it happens

Trigger: GetVersion RPC to the primary tablet fails: vttablet process down, RPC timeout, gRPC connectivity problem between vtctld and the tablet.

Common situations: Primary tablet crashed or is being restarted; firewall/network issue; tablet alias in shard record points to a decommissioned tablet.

Related errors

• Error setting tablet to read-only: %w
• Error setting tablet to read-write: %w
• unable to get version for tablet %v: %v
• invalid key:value pair
• can't get primary replication position: %v

AI-assisted analysis of vitessio/vitess@01a25a7d17 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9bf7c054c867e40c. Report an issue: GitHub.