Troubleshooting database cluster issues

If your database cluster isn’t behaving as expected, start with these checks:

1. Check cluster status.

   kubectl describe databasecluster <cluster-name> -n <your namespace>
   

2. Check the operator logs.

   kubectl logs -n <operator-namespace> deployment/everest-operator-controller-manager
   

The table below summarizes frequent issues, their possible causes, and how to resolve them.

Issue	Possible Cause	How to Check / Fix	Resolution
Cluster stuck in creating or initializing	Insufficient CPU, memory, or nodes available	- Inspect pod events: kubectl describe pod <pod-name> -n <namespace> kubectl describe pod -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=<db-cluster-name> -n <namespace> - Check node resource allocation: kubectl describe nodes | grep -A5 "Allocated resources" - Monitor live usage: kubectl top nodes kubectl top pods -A	Add more nodes, increase resource limits/quotas, or free up resources by scaling down less critical workloads.
Cluster in error state	Misconfigured storage class or insufficient resources	- Check available storage classes: kubectl get storageclass - Inspect pod events: kubectl describe pod <pod-name> -n <namespace> kubectl describe pod -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=<db-cluster-name> -n <namespace> - Check node resource allocation: kubectl describe nodes	Update the storage class in the cluster spec or request more resources.
Backup or restore fails	Invalid backupStorageName or missing/incorrect S3 credentials	- Inspect backup: kubectl describe dbbackup <backup-name> -n <namespace> - Verify secrets: kubectl get secrets -n <namespace>	Fix the BackupStorage configuration and update S3 credentials secret.
Monitoring not working	Missing or invalid PMM credentials	- Check monitoring config: kubectl get monitoringconfig -n <namespace> kubectl describe monitoringconfig <name> -n <namespace>	Recreate the PMM secret with valid base64-encoded credentials.
Proxy not starting	Wrong proxy type or insufficient resources	- Check proxy pod status: kubectl get pods -n <namespace> kubectl describe pod <proxy-pod> -n <namespace>	Correct the proxy type in spec and/or increase CPU/memory requests.