helm upgrade failed with error has no deployed releases

[damodhar22]

I tried to do an helm upgrade it failed saying: has no deployed releases. The expected behavior is that it should install the chart as the option --install is provided

helm upgrade --install --force myapp ./test
Error: UPGRADE FAILED: "myapp" has no deployed releases

Output of helm version:v3.0.0

Output of kubectl version:v1.15.0

Cloud Provider/Platform (AKS, GKE, Minikube etc.): EKS

[marckhouzam]

I've seen this when there is a failed release. Try doing: helm list --all-namespaces -a
That -a flag is important.

[aaronmell]

I'm curious if this is the correct behavior. If a release is in a failed state it cannot be upgraded. This seems to differ from helm v2, where it was possible to upgrade a failed release.

Upgrading a release calls this code, and always passes
"status": "deployed",

helm/pkg/storage/storage.go

Line 133 in 65bdd0c

ls, err := s.Driver.Query(map[string]string{

So any releases in a failed state would not be returned, and helm will error with the "no deployed releases" message.

[damodhar22]

I'm curious if this is the correct behavior. If a release is in a failed state it cannot be upgraded. This seems to differ from helm v2, where it was possible to upgrade a failed release.

Upgrading a release calls this code, and always passes
"status": "deployed",

helm/pkg/storage/storage.go

Line 133 in 65bdd0c

ls, err := s.Driver.Query(map[string]string{

So any releases in a failed state would not be returned, and helm will error with the "no deployed releases" message.

If upgrading a failed state is not a correct behavior, it should allow to install the release as we are giving the option --install in upgrade scenario

[mgcrea]

Encountering this as well today with helm@3.0.1, I have a release deployed through helm a few weeks ago and today the release can't be found. Nothing in helm list --all-namespaces -a, but the release is properly running. Never happened to me on the 2.x branch.

[marckhouzam]

@mgcrea did you deploy your release with helm 3 or helm 2? Helm 3 doesn't see the releases of helm 2, or vice versa.

[mgcrea]

@marckhouzam it was with helm 3, maybe I did something funky trying to upgrade it. Had a release name == namespace name, not sure if it can cause such kind of issues.

[hickeyma]

@mgcrea There are breaking changes if releases were deployed using pre GA versions of Helm 3 (like alphas, betas, rcs) and Helm 3 GA

[bacongobbler]

closing as a duplicate of #5595.

[abdennour]

fixed by kubectl -n $namespace delete secret -lstatus=pending-upgrade
Run now helm again.

[sajtrus]

I had issues with helm upgrade and it lead me here. It was solved by adding -n <namespace>. Maybe it will help someone out there.

[AlbinoDrought]

Similar to @abdennour , kubectl -n $namespace delete secret -lstatus=pending-install for me after installing a chart with broken pre-install hooks

[qb14cj]

@sajtrus Thanks for comment. Added the namespace, and my upgrade executed. @mgcrea Apparently helm runs same as kubectl. To get helm list for a specific namespace, include -n $namespace. In both cases, for default namespace, leave blank.

[wasim-nihal]

I had the same issue while trying to upgrade my helm chart using helm client-go package. I was getting the below error each time while trying to upgrade using func (helmclient.Client).InstallOrUpgradeChart function of helm client.
**my-chart-test" has no deployed releases**

When I did helm list on my namespace, my chart was not listed there. So, I has to explicitly trigger a helm uninstall my-chart-test -n my-namespace and install again.