Airflow Helm chart 1.18.0 fails to install due to missing Bitnami PostgreSQL image tag (ImagePullBackOff)

[mahaoyu]

Official Helm Chart version

1.18.0 (latest released)

Apache Airflow version

3.0.2 (Helm chart appVersion from apache-airflow/airflow 1.18.0)

Kubernetes Version

Server: v1.30 (k3s, containerd) on Debian 13 Client: v1.30

Helm Chart configuration

Chart: apache-airflow/airflow 1.18.0
Install cmd:

helm upgrade --install airflow apache-airflow/airflow \
  --namespace airflow --create-namespace

Docker Image customizations

No response

What happened

Observed: install times out; pods stuck waiting for Postgres.
kubectl -n airflow get pods

airflow-postgresql-0 0/1 ImagePullBackOff

others Init:0/1 waiting on DB

What you think should happen instead

Why: the Airflow chart depends on Bitnami PostgreSQL subchart 13.2.24:
helm show chart apache-airflow/airflow | grep -A4 '^dependencies'
# name: postgresql
# repository: https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
# version: 13.2.24

That subchart’s default image.tag is 16.1.0-debian-11-r15:
helm show values bitnami/postgresql --version 13.2.24 | grep -A1 'image.tag'
#   tag: 16.1.0-debian-11-r15

Docker Hub no longer provides that tag (at least can't find it on docker hub). The registry API shows only latest and sha256 digests:
curl -s https://registry.hub.docker.com/v2/repositories/bitnami/postgresql/tags \
| jq '.results[].name'
# "latest", "latest-metadata", "sha256-....", ...

Error from pod events (abridged):
Failed to pull image "docker.io/bitnami/postgresql:16.1.0-debian-11-r15": not found
Back-off pulling image "docker.io/bitnami/postgresql:16.1.0-debian-11-r15"

How to reproduce

Minimal repro

Assumptions

• Fresh cluster (Kubernetes v1.30.x; containerd).
• Helm 3.10+ on client.
• No custom values; pure defaults.

Steps

1. Add repos and confirm dependency:

helm repo add apache-airflow https://airflow.apache.org
helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
helm repo update
helm show chart apache-airflow/airflow | grep -A4 '^dependencies'
# -> postgresql subchart version: 13.2.24 (bitnami)

Anything else

No response

Are you willing to submit PR?

• Yes I am willing to submit a PR!

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[boring-cyborg]

Thanks for opening your first issue here! Be sure to follow the issue template! If you are willing to raise PR to address this issue please do so, no need to wait for approval.

[fjanicki]

Same issue here. I think the images are still available on ECR Public if we need to keep the same images.

[renatosalopes]

I had the same issue as well. Here is a workaround: helm install airflow apache-airflow/airflow --namespace airflow --create-namespace --set postgresql.image.tag="latest"

[mahaoyu]

Thanks @renatosalopes, works for me as a workaround, too.

[eladkal]

I think that for now this is solved by #61156