Helm UPGRADE FAILED: Another Operation In Progress

Symptom

helm upgrade fails: "another operation (install/upgrade/rollback) is in progress".

Root cause

The previous release operation never completed (crashed mid-install).

Fix, in order

1. See the release historyhelm history <release> -n <ns>
2. Roll back to the last good revisionhelm rollback <release> <rev> -n <ns>
3. Nuclear option for a truly dead releasehelm uninstall <release> -n <ns> && helm install ...

Prevent it coming back

Never interrupt a helm install; use --wait --timeout.

Run it on clean infra

Spinning up a fresh box to reproduce or escape this error?

Managed cloud hosting

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Last reviewed 2026-10-02 · NinjaOps SEO grid · DevOps blog