helm: Helm throws an error when packaging charts

$ helm version
Client: &version.Version{SemVer:"v2.3.0", GitCommit:"2342275b61e0539d259590975cfb78f23afcc1e3", GitTreeState:"clean"}
Server: &version.Version{SemVer:"v2.3.0", GitCommit:"d83c245fc324117885ed83afc90ac74afed271b4", GitTreeState:"clean"}

Steps to reproduce the problem:

create a test chart

$ helm create test

test that what you wanted to create is there and change to that directory:

$ cd test && tree .
.
├── Chart.yaml
├── charts
├── templates
│   ├── NOTES.txt
│   ├── _helpers.tpl
│   ├── deployment.yaml
│   └── service.yaml
└── values.yaml

lint the chart:

$ helm lint .
==> Linting .
[INFO] Chart.yaml: icon is recommended

1 chart(s) linted, no failures

package the chart:

$ helm package .

Expected result: Chart gets packaged in a .tgz file and the command returns 0. ACTUAL RESULT: The .tgz file gets generated, but the command returns an error code:

$ helm package .
WARNING: Deprecated index file format. Try 'helm repo update'
Error: no API version specified
$ echo $?
1

Other steps taken

update the repo:

$ helm repo update
Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
...Successfully got an update from the "dp-stable" chart repository
Update Complete. ⎈ Happy Helming!⎈
$ helm package .
WARNING: Deprecated index file format. Try 'helm repo update'
Error: no API version specified

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 7 years ago
Comments: 22 (11 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

More info This happened after the helm upgrade to the latest version.

I managed to fix this by:

uninstalling helm with brew uninstall kubernetes-helm
deleting the ~/.helm directory
reinstalling kubernetes-helm with brew which made it recreate all the directories.

So probably this should be fixed as a part of the upgrade process, or some documentation?

ursuad on Apr 11, 2017

Running “helm serve .” fixed the issue for me.

ae6rt on Jun 6, 2017

Can you run helm serve, @ae6rt ? Does it give you any errors?

One possible reason for this error is that helm init was never run (only helm init --client-only is necessary. Another is that helm serve corrupted the index. And often just running it again will fix the index. As soon as it has successfully started up, you can CTRL-C it.

technosophos on Jun 6, 2017