Helm: Error: no available release name found

Kubernetes 1.8 support was only recently added in helm v2.7.0 so I wouldn't expect Helm v2.6.2 to work with a 1.8 cluster. Can you try the v2.7.0-rc1 release and see if that works? Installing the v2.7.0-rc1 binary locally and running helm reset && helm init should do the trick. Thanks! :)

@bacongobbler thanks for a hint, but didn't change that match

helm version
Client: &version.Version{SemVer:"v2.7.0", GitCommit:"08c1144f5eb3e3b636d9775617287cc26e53dba4", GitTreeState:"clean"}
Server: &version.Version{SemVer:"v2.7.0", GitCommit:"08c1144f5eb3e3b636d9775617287cc26e53dba4", GitTreeState:"clean"}

and when i try it again:

$ helm install stable/mongodb-replicaset
Error: no available release name found

with the following log:

[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:11:22 preparing install for
[storage] 2017/10/26 18:11:22 getting release "listless-toucan.v1"
[storage/driver] 2017/10/26 18:11:36 get: failed to get "zealous-panther.v1": Get https://10.96.0.1:443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps/zealous-panther.v1: dial tcp 10.96.0.1:443: i/o timeout
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:11:36 info: generated name zealous-panther is taken. Searching again.
[storage] 2017/10/26 18:11:36 getting release "terrifying-serval.v1"
[storage/driver] 2017/10/26 18:11:52 get: failed to get "listless-toucan.v1": Get https://10.96.0.1:443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps/listless-toucan.v1: dial tcp 10.96.0.1:443: i/o timeout
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:11:52 info: generated name listless-toucan is taken. Searching again.
[storage] 2017/10/26 18:11:52 getting release "jittery-rat.v1"
[storage/driver] 2017/10/26 18:12:06 get: failed to get "terrifying-serval.v1": Get https://10.96.0.1:443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps/terrifying-serval.v1: dial tcp 10.96.0.1:443: i/o timeout
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:12:06 info: generated name terrifying-serval is taken. Searching again.
[storage] 2017/10/26 18:12:06 getting release "wayfaring-dachshund.v1"
[storage/driver] 2017/10/26 18:12:22 get: failed to get "jittery-rat.v1": Get https://10.96.0.1:443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps/jittery-rat.v1: dial tcp 10.96.0.1:443: i/o timeout
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:12:22 info: generated name jittery-rat is taken. Searching again.
[storage] 2017/10/26 18:12:22 getting release "lucky-arachnid.v1"
[storage/driver] 2017/10/26 18:12:36 get: failed to get "wayfaring-dachshund.v1": Get https://10.96.0.1:443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps/wayfaring-dachshund.v1: dial tcp 10.96.0.1:443: i/o timeout
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:12:36 info: generated name wayfaring-dachshund is taken. Searching again.
[storage] 2017/10/26 18:12:36 getting release "gangly-lambkin.v1"
[storage/driver] 2017/10/26 18:12:52 get: failed to get "lucky-arachnid.v1": Get https://10.96.0.1:443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps/lucky-arachnid.v1: dial tcp 10.96.0.1:443: i/o timeout
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:12:52 info: generated name lucky-arachnid is taken. Searching again.
[storage] 2017/10/26 18:12:52 getting release "boiling-kudu.v1"
[storage/driver] 2017/10/26 18:13:06 get: failed to get "gangly-lambkin.v1": Get https://10.96.0.1:443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps/gangly-lambkin.v1: dial tcp 10.96.0.1:443: i/o timeout
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:13:06 info: generated name gangly-lambkin is taken. Searching again.
[storage] 2017/10/26 18:13:06 getting release "quoting-sloth.v1"
[storage/driver] 2017/10/26 18:13:22 get: failed to get "boiling-kudu.v1": Get https://10.96.0.1:443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps/boiling-kudu.v1: dial tcp 10.96.0.1:443: i/o timeout
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:13:22 info: generated name boiling-kudu is taken. Searching again.
[storage] 2017/10/26 18:13:22 getting release "nordic-rabbit.v1"
[storage/driver] 2017/10/26 18:13:36 get: failed to get "quoting-sloth.v1": Get https://10.96.0.1:443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps/quoting-sloth.v1: dial tcp 10.96.0.1:443: i/o timeout
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:13:36 info: generated name quoting-sloth is taken. Searching again.
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:13:36 warning: No available release names found after 5 tries
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:13:36 failed install prepare step: no available release name found
[storage/driver] 2017/10/26 18:13:52 get: failed to get "nordic-rabbit.v1": Get https://10.96.0.1:443/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps/nordic-rabbit.v1: dial tcp 10.96.0.1:443: i/o timeout
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:13:52 info: generated name nordic-rabbit is taken. Searching again.
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:13:52 warning: No available release names found after 5 tries
[tiller] 2017/10/26 18:13:52 failed install prepare step: no available release name found

ok...
i replaced flannel though calico and it get running

Per https://github.com/kubernetes/helm/issues/2224#issuecomment-356344286, the following commands resolved the error for me:

kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace kube-system tiller
kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller
kubectl patch deploy --namespace kube-system tiller-deploy -p '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"serviceAccount":"tiller"}}}}'

after many approaches, finally, this worked for me, thanks!

kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace kube-system tiller
kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller
kubectl patch deploy --namespace kube-system tiller-deploy -p '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"serviceAccount":"tiller"}}}}'

The above 3 lines resolved this for me as well.
kubectl client: 1.9.6
kubectl server: 1.8.7
helm client: 2.8.2
helm server: 2.8.2

Issue appears and the solution mentioned is not working for:

Kube Client Version: 1.10.1
Kube Server Version: 1.10.1
Helm Client: "v2.9.0"
Helm Server: "v2.9.0"

Also by executing helm list with minikue on, I got error of
Error: Get http://localhost:8080/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/configmaps?labelSelector=OWNER%!D(MISSING)TILLER: dial tcp 127.0.0.1:8080: connect: connection refused

@viane try helm init --service-account default; it's another ticket but it results in the same generic error.

@viane Try the following steps. (You'll probably need to kubectl delete the tiller service and deployment.)

$ kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace kube-system tiller
$ kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller
$ helm init --service-account tiller

That fixed it for me.

helm reset && helm init didn't work for me, nor did the RBAC solutions above.
Finally got it working again by deleting Tiller and then using the suggestion in https://github.com/kubernetes/helm/issues/3055#issuecomment-385296641:

kubectl delete deployment tiller-deploy --namespace kube-system
helm init --upgrade --service-account default

I encountered the same issue. then I tried following

kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace kube-system tiller
kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller
kubectl patch deploy --namespace kube-system tiller-deploy -p '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"serviceAccount":"tiller"}}}}'

with the
kubectl patch deploy --namespace kube-system tiller-deploy -p '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"serviceAccount":"tiller"}}}}'
I got the message "Error from server (BadRequest): invalid character 's' looking for beginning of object key string"

and then I tried following commands

$ kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace kube-system tiller
$ kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller
$ helm init --service-account tiller

I got the message:
failed: clusterroles.rbac.authorization.k8s.io .... [clusterroles.rbac.authorization.k8s.io "cluster-admin" not found]

Please help me!...
Below is my information:
helm version

Client: &version.Version{SemVer:"v2.9.0", GitCommit:"f6025bb9ee7daf9fee0026541c90a6f557a3e0bc", GitTreeState:"clean"}
Server: &version.Version{SemVer:"v2.9.0", GitCommit:"f6025bb9ee7daf9fee0026541c90a6f557a3e0bc", GitTreeState:"clean"}

kubectl version

Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"9", GitVersion:"v1.9.0", GitCommit:"925c127ec6b946659ad0fd596fa959be43f0cc05", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2017-12-15T21:07:38Z", GoVersion:"go1.9.2", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"windows/amd64"}
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"9", GitVersion:"v1.9.6", GitCommit:"9f8ebd171479bec0ada837d7ee641dec2f8c6dd1", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2018-03-21T15:13:31Z", GoVersion:"go1.9.3", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}

minikube version
minikube version: v0.25.0

The strange is I was using Helm to install stable/nginx-ingress on May 9 and successfully, then I deleted Kubernetes (for practice), then re-install Kubernetes today and install stable/nginx-ingress again .... Ops got above error.

Thank you so much for your support in advance

@nguyenhuuloc304 I ran into the same issue. I had to make the cluster-admin ClusterRole.

apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  annotations:
    rbac.authorization.kubernetes.io/autoupdate: "true"
  creationTimestamp: null
  labels:
    kubernetes.io/bootstrapping: rbac-defaults
  name: cluster-admin
rules:
- apiGroups:
  - '*'
  resources:
  - '*'
  verbs:
  - '*'
- nonResourceURLs:
  - '*'
  verbs:
  - '*'

I think it is really important to add this somewhere in the guide. AKS on azure doesn't provide default cluster-admin role and a user has to create it.
https://github.com/jenkins-x/jx/issues/485#issuecomment-376804810
this was also the case on ACS as we can see here: https://github.com/Azure/acs-engine/issues/1892#issuecomment-353960778

This worked for me as I tried to helm install redis:
kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace kube-system tiller
kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller
helm init --service-account tiller --upgrade
helm update repo . # This was the last piece to the puzzle
helm install stable/redis --version 3.3.5

Same here,
kube client: v1.10.4
kube server: v1.9.6
helm client/erver v2.9.1

# helm install stable/prometheus --namespace=monitoring --set rbac.create="true"
Error: no available release name found

# helm search | grep prometheus
coreos/grafana                          0.0.35                                          Grafana instance for kube-prometheus
coreos/kube-prometheus                  0.0.82                                          Manifests, dashboards, and alerting rules for e...
coreos/prometheus                       0.0.43                                          Prometheus instance created by the CoreOS Prome...
coreos/prometheus-operator              0.0.26          0.20.0                          Provides easy monitoring definitions for Kubern...
stable/prometheus                       6.7.2           2.2.1                           Prometheus is a monitoring system and time seri...

Just ran this line and worked, thanks for post it! : kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller

#kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io "tiller-cluster-rule" created
[root@ip-172-31-90-223 charts]# helm install stable/prometheus --namespace=monitoring --set rbac.create="true"
NAME:   ungaged-sloth
LAST DEPLOYED: Thu Jun 14 23:52:31 2018
NAMESPACE: monitoring
STATUS: DEPLOYED

Why does it take so long for Error: no available release name found to show up? It honestly takes 5 minutes for me to get the error message, so the 40,000 things I have to try to get it to work take 5m*40,000

For me, not a single solution worked. However, I reinstalled minikube as well as tiller and I did this step first:

If your cluster has Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) enabled, you may want to configure a service account and rules before proceeding.

This is indeed mentioned in the documentation but it is a bit confusing since it appears after this paragraph:

If you’re using Helm on a cluster that you completely control, like minikube or a cluster on a private network in which sharing is not a concern, the default installation – which applies no security configuration – is fine, and it’s definitely the easiest. To install Helm without additional security steps, install Helm and then initialize Helm.

Below instructions solved my problem as well for helm v2.11.0 and kube 1.12.1 versions.

$ kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace kube-system tiller
$ kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller
$ helm init --service-account tiller

sudo iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT

The above command is all I had to do to get rid of the error.. none of the other solution seemed to work for me.

Regards
Ranga

The same way but with terraform.

  resource "kubernetes_service_account" "tiller" {
    metadata {
      name = "tiller"
      namespace = "kube-system"
    }
  }

  resource "kubernetes_cluster_role_binding" "tiller-cluster-rule" {

    metadata {
      name = "tiller-cluster-rule"
    }

    role_ref {
      kind = "ClusterRole"
      name = "cluster-admin"
      api_group = "rbac.authorization.k8s.io"
    }

    subject {
      kind = "ServiceAccount"
      namespace = "kube-system"
      name = "tiller"
      api_group = ""
    }

    provisioner "local-exec" {
      command = "helm init --service-account tiller"
    }
  }

Did you try this
sudo iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
Regards
Ranga

I tried all the above options in vain and the one suggested by rangapv worked for me. Thank you.

Nothing above worked.

None of the above mentioned solution is working.

$ kubectl version
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"12", GitVersion:"v1.12.4", GitCommit:"f49fa022dbe63faafd0da106ef7e05a29721d3f1", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2018-12-14T07:10:00Z", GoVersion:"go1.10.4", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"darwin/amd64"}
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"13", GitVersion:"v1.13.2", GitCommit:"cff46ab41ff0bb44d8584413b598ad8360ec1def", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2019-01-10T23:28:14Z", GoVersion:"go1.11.4", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}

$ helm version
Client: &version.Version{SemVer:"v2.12.3", GitCommit:"eecf22f77df5f65c823aacd2dbd30ae6c65f186e", GitTreeState:"clean"}
Server: &version.Version{SemVer:"v2.12.3", GitCommit:"eecf22f77df5f65c823aacd2dbd30ae6c65f186e", GitTreeState:"clean"}

$ kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace kube-system tiller
Error from server (AlreadyExists): serviceaccounts "tiller" already exists
Ravis-MacBook-Pro-2:.kube ravi$ kubectl create clusterrolebinding tiller-cluster-rule --clusterrole=cluster-admin --serviceaccount=kube-system:tiller
Error from server (AlreadyExists): clusterrolebindings.rbac.authorization.k8s.io "tiller-cluster-rule" already exists
Ravis-MacBook-Pro-2:.kube ravi$ helm init --service-account tiller --upgrade
$HELM_HOME has been configured at /Users/ravi/.helm.

Tiller (the Helm server-side component) has been upgraded to the current version.
Happy Helming!
Ravis-MacBook-Pro-2:.kube ravi$ helm update repo
Command "update" is deprecated, use 'helm repo update'

Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
...Skip local chart repository
...Successfully got an update from the "stable" chart repository
Update Complete. ⎈ Happy Helming!⎈

Ravis-MacBook-Pro-2:.kube ravi$ helm install stable/redis
Error: no available release name found

Hey,

a more secure solution with no cluster-role admin permission:

1. Create the following role in the ${TILLER_NAMESPACE}:

TILLER_NAMESPACE='your tiller namespace'
cat <<EOF | kubectl create -n ${TILLER_NAMESPACE} -f -
- kind: Role
  apiVersion: v1
  metadata:
    name: tiller
  rules:
  - apiGroups:
    - ""
    resources:
    - configmaps
    verbs:
    - create
    - get
    - list
    - update
    - delete
  - apiGroups:
    - ""
    resources:
    - namespaces
    verbs:
    - get
EOF

1. Create service account, bind the local role and patch deploy

kubectl create serviceaccount --namespace ${TILLER_NAMESPACE} tiller
kubectl create rolebinding tiller-rule --role=tiller --serviceaccount=${TILLER_NAMESPACE}:tiller
kubectl patch deploy --namespace ${TILLER_NAMESPACE} tiller-deploy -p '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"serviceAccount":"tiller"}}}}'

This should fix the above error.

If you want to deploy tiller charts to project you need to give tiller edit permissions:

kubectl create rolebinding tiller-edit-rights -n ${YOUR-PROJECT_NAMESPACE} --clusterrole=edit --serviceaccount=${TILLER_NAMESPACE}:tiller

None of the above solutions worked for me, but the instructions at the following link did.

https://scriptcrunch.com/helm-error-no-available-release/

None of the above solutions worked for me, but the instructions at the following link did.

https://scriptcrunch.com/helm-error-no-available-release/

Thanks mate, it works