IL-0166 Linode · 2026-05-15kubernetes
Some Linode deployments rely on StackScripts, and all newly created LKE and LKE-E nodes do. Decoding a StackScript uses a credential parser on the compute hosts. A recent update on the compute hosts removed that parser, so every deployment that relied on StackScripts failed, the resulting Linodes could not boot, and LKE autoscaling and recycling broke in all regions.
After the cause was found, the team began testing a rollback at 01:10 UTC on 2026-05-16, saw failures drop at 01:20 UTC, and had mitigated the broader customer impact by 01:30 UTC. The incident was marked resolved at 01:43 UTC. The postmortem was posted on 2026-05-20 and says the investigation was still ongoing.
Linodes deployed with StackScripts failed to deploy and could not boot. Every newly created Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE) and LKE-E node relies on StackScripts, so LKE autoscaling and node recycling failed as well, in all regions.
The issue was identified at 18:18 UTC on 2026-05-15. The first status post, at 00:42 UTC on 2026-05-16, described an emerging service issue with Linodes booting across all regions.
Symptom ? Scale-up failure
Root cause ? Faulty deployment
The issue was identified at 18:18 UTC on 2026-05-15. The first status post went up at 00:42 UTC on 2026-05-16.
–
Removing a credential parser from the compute hosts broke the boot of every Linode deployed with StackScripts, and every new LKE and LKE-E node is one of them, so node creation, autoscaling and node recycling stopped in all regions. The rollback reduced failures ten minutes after testing began.
same root cause · shared Cluster autoscaler, Node pool
same root cause · shared Node pool
same root cause · shared Node pool
same root cause · shared Node pool