How to troubleshoot and resolve Scale Agent error- "Not config file provided, using defaults; could not find config directory"

Last updated on Nov 17, 2025

Issue

Armory agent could fail loading configuration files, even though configuration files do exist. The agent logs may reveal errors like the one below:

time="2023-08-28T01:03:06Z" level=warning msg="Not config file provided, using defaults; could not find config directory" agentId=spin-armory-agent-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx
time="2023-08-28T01:03:06Z" level=info msg="The following settings have been loaded: {"clouddriver":{"auth":null,"grpc":"spin-clouddriver-grpc: 9091","keepAliveHeartbeatSeconds":20,"keepAliveOperationSeconds":0,"keepAliveTimeOutSeconds":0,"insecure":true,"tls":{"insecureSkipVerify":false},"noProxy":false,"retries":{"retryAnyError":true,"retryableErrors":null,"backOffMs":3000,"enabled":true,"maxRetries":3},"cacheRetryIntervalSeconds":0,"dynamicAccountsEnabled":true,"backoff":{"BaseDelay":1000000000,"Multiplier":1.6,"Jitter":0.2,"MaxDelay":120000000000}},"hub":{"connection":{"auth":null,"grpc":"agents.cloud.armory.io: 443","keepAliveOperationSeconds":0,"keepAliveTimeOutSeconds":0,"insecure":null,"tls":null,"noProxy":false,"retries":{"retryAnyError":true,"retryableErrors":null,"backOffMs":3000,"enabled":true,"maxRetries":3},"cacheRetryIntervalSeconds":0,"dynamicAccountsEnabled":null,"backoff":{"BaseDelay":0,"Multiplier":0,"Jitter":0,"MaxDelay":0}},"auth":{"armory":{"tokenIssuerUrl":"https://auth.cloud.armory.io/oauth/token","audience":"https://api.cloud.armory.io","verify":true},"refreshIntervalSeconds":0,"expirationLeewaySeconds":30}},"kubernetes":{"accounts":null,"reconnectTimeoutMs":5000,"noProxy":false,"retries":{"retryAnyError":false,"retryableErrors":["timeout","deadline exceeded"],"backOffMs":3000,"enabled":true,"maxRetries":3},"dynamicAccountsOnly":false,"serverSideApply":{"enabled":"allowed","manifestDefaults":"allowed","clearManagedFields":"allowed","kinds":null}},"local":{"enabled":false,"aggregate":false,"port":0},"logging":{"format":"","level":"INFO","remote":{"enabled":false,"endpoint":"","customerId":"","version":""},"multiWrite":false,"maxSizeMb":1,"maxAgeDays":10,"maxBackups":10,"localTime":true,"compress":false,"fields":{}},"pprof":{"enabled":false,"port":6060},"prometheus":{"enabled":false,"port":8008},"secrets":{"vault":{"enabled":false,"url":"","authMethod":"","role":"","path":"","username":"","password":"","userAuthPath":"","namespace":"","Token":""}},"server":{"Host":"","Port":8082,"Ssl":{"Enabled":false,"CertFile":"","KeyFile":"","KeyPassword":"","CAcertFile":"","ClientAuth":""}},"tasks":{"totalBudget":1000,"budgetPerAccount":50,"queueCheckFrequencyMs":2000},"zoneId":"","balanceConnection":false,"clouddriverNamespace":"","domainName":""}" agentId=spin-armory-agent-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx
time="2023-08-28T01:03:06Z" level=info msg="Checking ENV for LOG_LEVEL...  Using default "INFO"" agentId=spin-armory-agent-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx
time="2023-08-28T01:03:06Z" level=info msg="log level set to: INFO" agentId=spin-armory-agent-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx

Close attention should be paid to the first message: "Not config file provided, using defaults; could not find config directory", which indicates that the agent always loads the default settings. Other signs that you are running into this issue could be a SIGSEGV error similar to the one below:

time="2023-07-11T16:09:29Z" level=error msg="Notifying account discovery error for example-account-1: error getting server version for account 'example-account-1': Get \"https://EXAMPLEEKSACCTID.gr7.us-west-2.eks.amazonaws.com/version\": dial tcp: lookup EXAMPLEEKSACCTID.gr7.us-west-2.eks.amazonaws.com on 172.0.0.11:53: no such host" account=example-account-1 agentId=spin-armory-agent-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx error="error getting server version for account 'example-account-1': Get \"https://EXAMPLEEKSACCTID.gr7.us-west-2.eks.amazonaws.com/version\": dial tcp: lookup EXAMPLEEKSACCTID.gr7.us-west-2.eks.amazonaws.com on 172.0.0.11:53: no such host"
time="2023-07-11T16:09:29Z" level=info msg="Account discovery result received: account=example-account-1, namespaces=0, kinds =0, errors=error getting server version for account 'example-account-1': Get \"https://EXAMPLEEKSACCTID.gr7.us-west-2.eks.amazonaws.com/version\": dial tcp: lookup EXAMPLEEKSACCTID.gr7.us-west-2.eks.amazonaws.com on 172.0.0.11:53: no such host" account=example-account-1 agentId=spin-armory-agent-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx
panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference
[signal SIGSEGV: segmentation violation code=0x1 addr=0x0 pc=0x17f76b0]

goroutine 2106 [running]:
k8s.io/client-go/discovery.convertAPIResource(...)
	/workspace/vendor/k8s.io/client-go/discovery/aggregated_discovery.go:88
k8s.io/client-go/discovery.convertAPIGroup({{{0x0, 0x0}, {0x0, 0x0}}, {{0xc0017e1800, 0x15}, {0x0, 0x0}, {0x0, 0x0}, ...}, ...})
	/workspace/vendor/k8s.io/client-go/discovery/aggregated_discovery.go:69 +0x5f0
k8s.io/client-go/discovery.SplitGroupsAndResources({{{0xc0017e0198, 0x15}, {0xc0024aa080, 0x1b}}, {{0x0, 0x0}, {0x0, 0x0}, {0x0, 0x0}, ...}, ...})
	/workspace/vendor/k8s.io/client-go/discovery/aggregated_discovery.go:35 +0x2f8
k8s.io/client-go/discovery.(*DiscoveryClient).downloadAPIs(0xb?)
	/workspace/vendor/k8s.io/client-go/discovery/discovery_client.go:310 +0x47c
k8s.io/client-go/discovery.(*DiscoveryClient).GroupsAndMaybeResources(0x7f4af79a7fff?)
	/workspace/vendor/k8s.io/client-go/discovery/discovery_client.go:198 +0x5c
k8s.io/client-go/discovery.ServerGroupsAndResources({0x289a790, 0xc0012dda70})
	/workspace/vendor/k8s.io/client-go/discovery/discovery_client.go:392 +0x59
k8s.io/client-go/discovery.(*DiscoveryClient).ServerGroupsAndResources.func1()
	/workspace/vendor/k8s.io/client-go/discovery/discovery_client.go:356 +0x25
k8s.io/client-go/discovery.withRetries(0x2, 0xc001455138)
	/workspace/vendor/k8s.io/client-go/discovery/discovery_client.go:621 +0x72
k8s.io/client-go/discovery.(*DiscoveryClient).ServerGroupsAndResources(0x9b?)
	/workspace/vendor/k8s.io/client-go/discovery/discovery_client.go:355 +0x3a
armory/kubesvc/pkg/adapters/kube_server.(*KubeAdapter).GetServerResources(0xc0005f5b80)
	/workspace/pkg/adapters/kube_server/commander_discovery.go:74 +0x5f
armory/kubesvc/pkg/logic.(*defaultDiscoveryService).discoverKinds(_, {{{0xc000810570, 0x16}, 0x0, {0xc000aae600, 0xe}, {0x0, 0x0, 0x0}, {0x0, ...}, ...}, ...}, ...)
	/workspace/pkg/logic/discovery.go:94 +0x52
armory/kubesvc/pkg/logic.(*defaultDiscoveryService).DiscoverAccount.func1({{{0xc000810570, 0x16}, 0x0, {0xc000aae600, 0xe}, {0x0, 0x0, 0x0}, {0x0, 0x0, ...}, ...}, ...})
	/workspace/pkg/logic/discovery.go:72 +0x298
created by armory/kubesvc/pkg/logic.(*defaultDiscoveryService).DiscoverAccount
	/workspace/pkg/logic/discovery.go:53 +0x105

Cause

This issue is caused by adding/configuring a wrongfully configured Kubernetes account (possibly without a kubeconfig file).This causes the agent not to load the configuration properly and/or ignore the Kubernetes account and continue with the operations. The account name can be revealed in the Go routine stack trace: example-account-1.

Issue​

Cause​

Issue

Cause