Cassandra troubleshooting guide Stay organized with collections Save and categorize content based on your preferences.
This topic discusses steps you can take to troubleshoot and fix problems with theCassandra datastore. Cassandra is a persistent datastore that runs in thecassandra component of thehybrid runtime architecture. See alsoRuntime service configuration overview.
Cassandra pods are stuck in the Pending state
Symptom
When starting up, the Cassandra pods remain in thePending state.
Error message
When you usekubectl to view the pod states, you see that one or more Cassandra pods are stuck in thePending state. ThePending state indicates that Kubernetes is unable to schedule the pod on a node: the pod cannot be created. For example:
kubectl get pods -nnamespaceNAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGEadah-resources-install-4762w 0/4 Completed 0 10mapigee-cassandra-0 0/1 Pending 0 10m...Possible causes
A pod stuck in the Pending state can have multiple causes. For example:
| Cause | Description |
|---|---|
| Insufficient resources | There is not enough CPU or memory available to create the pod. |
| Volume not created | The pod is waiting for the persistent volume to be created. |
Diagnosis
Usekubectl to describe the pod to determine the source of the error. For example:
kubectl -nnamespace describe podspod_name
For example:
kubectl -n apigee describe pods apigee-cassandra-0
The output may show one of these possible problems:
- If the problem is insufficient resources, you will see a Warning message that indicates insufficient CPU or memory.
- If the error message indicates that the pod has unbound immediate PersistentVolumeClaims (PVC), it means the pod is not able to create its Persistent volume.
Resolution
Insufficient resources
Modify the Cassandra node pool so that it has sufficient CPU and memory resources. See Resizing a node pool for details.
Persistent volume not created
If you determine a persistent volume issue, describe the PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) to determine why it is not being created:
- List the PVCs in the cluster:
kubectl -nnamespace get pvcNAME STATUS VOLUME CAPACITY ACCESS MODES STORAGECLASS AGEcassandra-data-apigee-cassandra-0 Bound pvc-b247faae-0a2b-11ea-867b-42010a80006e 10Gi RWO standard 15m...
- Describe the PVC for the pod that is failing. For example, the following command describes the PVC bound to the pod
apigee-cassandra-0:kubectl apigee describe pvc cassandra-data-apigee-cassandra-0Events: Type Reason Age From Message ---- ------ ---- ---- ------- Warning ProvisioningFailed 3m (x143 over 5h) persistentvolume-controller storageclass.storage.k8s.io "apigee-sc" not found
Note that in this example, the StorageClass named
apigee-scdoes not exist. To resolve this problem, create the missing StorageClass in the cluster, as explained in Change the default StorageClass.
See also Debugging Pods.
Cassandra pods are stuck in the CrashLoopBackoff state
Symptom
When starting up, the Cassandra pods remain in theCrashLoopBackoff state.
Error message
When you usekubectl to view the pod states, you see that one or more Cassandra pods are in theCrashLoopBackoff state. This state indicates that Kubernetes is unable to create the pod. For example:
kubectl get pods -nnamespaceNAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGEadah-resources-install-4762w 0/4 Completed 0 10mapigee-cassandra-0 0/1 CrashLoopBackoff 0 10m...Possible causes
A pod stuck in theCrashLoopBackoff state can have multiple causes. For example:
| Cause | Description |
|---|---|
| Data center differs from previous data center | This error indicates that the Cassandra pod has a persistent volume that has data from a previous cluster, and the new pods are not able to join the old cluster.This usually happens when stale persistent volumes persist from the previous Cassandra cluster on the same Kubernetes node. This problem can occur if you delete and recreate Cassandra in the cluster. |
| Truststore directory not found | This error indicates that the Cassandra pod is not able to create a TLS connection.This usually happens when the provided keys and certificates are invalid, missing, or have other issues. |
Diagnosis
Check theCassandra error log to determine the cause of the problem.
- List the pods to get the ID of the Cassandra pod that is failing:
kubectl get pods -nnamespace
- Check the failing pod's log:
kubectl logspod_id -nnamespace
Resolution
Look for the following clues in the pod's log:
Data center differs from previous data center
If you see this log message:
Cannot start node if snitch's data center (us-east1) differs from previous data center
- Check if there are any stale or old PVC in the cluster and delete them.
- If this is a fresh install, delete all the PVCs and re-try the setup. For example:
kubectl -nnamespace get pvckubectl -nnamespace delete pvc cassandra-data-apigee-cassandra-0
Truststore directory not found
If you see this log message:
Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: /apigee/cassandra/ssl/truststore.p12(No such file or directory)
Verify the key and certificates if provided in your overrides file are correct and valid. For example:
cassandra: sslRootCAPath:path_to_root_ca-file sslCertPath:path-to-tls-cert-file sslKeyPath:path-to-tls-key-file
Node failure
Symptom
When starting up, the Cassandra pods remain in the Pending state. Thisproblem can indicate an underlying node failure.
Diagnosis
- Determine which Cassandra pods are not running:
$kubectlgetpods-nyour_namespaceNAMEREADYSTATUSRESTARTSAGEcassandra-00/1Pending013scassandra-11/1Running08dcassandra-21/1Running08d
- Check the worker nodes. If one is in theNotReady state, then that is the node that has failed:
kubectl get nodes -nyour_namespaceNAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSIONip-10-30-1-190.ec2.internal Ready <none> 8d v1.13.2ip-10-30-1-22.ec2.internal Ready master 8d v1.13.2ip-10-30-1-36.ec2.internal NotReady <none> 8d v1.13.2ip-10-30-2-214.ec2.internal Ready <none> 8d v1.13.2ip-10-30-2-252.ec2.internal Ready <none> 8d v1.13.2ip-10-30-2-47.ec2.internal Ready <none> 8d v1.13.2ip-10-30-3-11.ec2.internal Ready <none> 8d v1.13.2ip-10-30-3-152.ec2.internal Ready <none> 8d v1.13.2ip-10-30-3-5.ec2.internal Ready <none> 8d v1.13.2
Resolution
- Remove the dead Cassandra pod from the cluster.
$ kubectl exec -it apigee-cassandra-0 -- nodetool status
$ kubectl exec -it apigee-cassandra-0 -- nodetool removenode deadnode_hostID - Remove the VolumeClaim from the dead node to prevent the Cassandra pod from attempting to come up on the dead node because of the affinity:
kubectl get pvc -nyour_namespace
kubectl delete pvcvolumeClaim_name -nyour_namespace - Update the volume template and create PersistentVolume for the newly added node. The following is an example volume template:
apiVersion:v1kind:PersistentVolumemetadata:name:cassandra-data-3spec:capacity:storage:100GiaccessModes:-ReadWriteOncepersistentVolumeReclaimPolicy:RetainstorageClassName:local-storagelocal:path:/apigee/datanodeAffinity:"required":"nodeSelectorTerms":-"matchExpressions":-"key":"kubernetes.io/hostname""operator":"In""values":["ip-10-30-1-36.ec2.internal"]
- Replace the values with the new hostname/IP and apply the template:
kubectl apply -f volume-template.yaml
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Last updated 2026-02-18 UTC.