Kubectl error: the object has been modified; please apply your changes to the latest version and try again

Question

I am getting below error while trying to apply patch :

core@dgoutam22-1-coreos-5760 ~ $ kubectl apply -f ads-central-configuration.yaml
Warning: kubectl apply should be used on resource created by either kubectl create --save-config or kubectl apply
Error from server (Conflict): error when applying patch:
{"data":{"default":"{\"dedicated_redis_cluster\": {\"nodes\": [{\"host\": \"192.168.1.94\", \"port\": 6379}]}}"},"metadata":{"annotations":{"kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration":"{\"apiVersion\":\"v1\",\"data\":{\"default\":\"{\\\"dedicated_redis_cluster\\\": {\\\"nodes\\\": [{\\\"host\\\": \\\"192.168.1.94\\\", \\\"port\\\": 6379}]}}\"},\"kind\":\"ConfigMap\",\"metadata\":{\"annotations\":{},\"creationTimestamp\":\"2018-06-27T07:19:13Z\",\"labels\":{\"acp-app\":\"acp-discovery-service\",\"version\":\"1\"},\"name\":\"ads-central-configuration\",\"namespace\":\"acp-system\",\"resourceVersion\":\"1109832\",\"selfLink\":\"/api/v1/namespaces/acp-system/configmaps/ads-central-configuration\",\"uid\":\"64901676-79da-11e8-bd65-fa163eaa7a28\"}}\n"},"creationTimestamp":"2018-06-27T07:19:13Z","resourceVersion":"1109832","uid":"64901676-79da-11e8-bd65-fa163eaa7a28"}}
to:
&{0xc4200bb380 0xc420356230 acp-system ads-central-configuration ads-central-configuration.yaml 0xc42000c970 4434 false}
**for: "ads-central-configuration.yaml": Operation cannot be fulfilled on configmaps "ads-central-configuration": the object has been modified; please apply your changes to the latest version and try again**
core@dgoutam22-1-coreos-5760 ~ $ 

Answer 1

It seems likely that your yaml configurations were copy pasted from what was generated, and thus contains fields such as creationTimestamp, which don't belong in a declarative configuration file.

Go through your yaml and clean it up. Remove things that are instance specific. Your final yaml should be simple enough that you can easily understand it.