Does Strimzi 0.45.0 Support AKS Kubernetes 1.33.x

[championshuttler]

Hey we are updating to the strimzi 0.45.0 on AKS 1.33.x but i am getting this error inside my pods

2025-09-11 13:06:21 INFO  Main:280 - Health and metrics server is ready on port 8080)
2025-09-11 13:06:21 INFO  Main:242 - Waiting to become a leader
2025-09-11 13:06:21 INFO  LeaderElectionManager:69 - Starting the Leader Elector
2025-09-11 13:06:22 INFO  LeaderElectionManager:121 - The new leader is
2025-09-11 13:06:22 INFO  LeaderElectionManager:121 - The new leader is strimzi-cluster-operator-76b947897f-ztvxd
2025-09-11 13:06:22 INFO  LeaderElectionManager:103 - Started being a leader
2025-09-11 13:06:22 INFO  Main:224 - I'm the new leader
2025-09-11 13:06:22 ERROR PlatformFeaturesAvailability:138 - Detection of Kubernetes version failed.
io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.KubernetesClientException: An error has occurred.
	at io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.KubernetesClientException.copyAsCause(KubernetesClientException.java:238) ~[io.fabric8.kubernetes-client-api-6.13.4.jar:?]
	at io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.dsl.internal.OperationSupport.waitForResult(OperationSupport.java:507) ~[io.fabric8.kubernetes-client-6.13.4.jar:?]
	at io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.dsl.internal.OperationSupport.handleResponse(OperationSupport.java:524) ~[io.fabric8.kubernetes-client-6.13.4.jar:?]
	at io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.dsl.internal.OperationSupport.restCall(OperationSupport.java:711) ~[io.fabric8.kubernetes-client-6.13.4.jar:?]
	at io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.impl.BaseClient.getVersionInfo(BaseClient.java:323) ~[io.fabric8.kubernetes-client-6.13.4.jar:?]
	at io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.impl.KubernetesClientImpl.getKubernetesVersion(KubernetesClientImpl.java:641) ~[io.fabric8.kubernetes-client-6.13.4.jar:?]
	at io.strimzi.operator.cluster.PlatformFeaturesAvailability.lambda$getVersionInfoFromKubernetes$4(PlatformFeaturesAvailability.java:136) ~[io.strimzi.cluster-operator-0.45.0.jar:0.45.0]
	at io.vertx.core.impl.ContextImpl.lambda$executeBlocking$4(ContextImpl.java:192) ~[io.vertx.vertx-core-4.5.11.jar:4.5.11]
	at io.vertx.core.impl.ContextInternal.dispatch(ContextInternal.java:270) ~[io.vertx.vertx-core-4.5.11.jar:4.5.11]
	at io.vertx.core.impl.ContextImpl$1.execute(ContextImpl.java:221) ~[io.vertx.vertx-core-4.5.11.jar:4.5.11]
	at io.vertx.core.impl.WorkerTask.run(WorkerTask.java:56) ~[io.vertx.vertx-core-4.5.11.jar:4.5.11]
	at io.vertx.core.impl.TaskQueue.run(TaskQueue.java:81) ~[io.vertx.vertx-core-4.5.11.jar:4.5.11]
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1136) ~[?:?]
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:635) ~[?:?]
	at io.netty.util.concurrent.FastThreadLocalRunnable.run(FastThreadLocalRunnable.java:30) ~[io.netty.netty-common-4.1.115.Final.jar:4.1.115.Final]
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:840) ~[?:?]
Caused by: io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.KubernetesClientException: An error has occurred.
	at io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.KubernetesClientException.launderThrowable(KubernetesClientException.java:129) ~[io.fabric8.kubernetes-client-api-6.13.4.jar:?]
	at io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.KubernetesClientException.launderThrowable(KubernetesClientException.java:122) ~[io.fabric8.kubernetes-client-api-6.13.4.jar:?]
	at io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.utils.KubernetesSerialization.unmarshal(KubernetesSerialization.java:261) ~[io.fabric8.kubernetes-client-api-6.13.4.jar:?]
	at io.fabric8.kubernetes.client.dsl.internal.OperationSupport.lambda$handleResponse$0(OperationSupport.java:551) ~[io.fabric8.kubernetes-client-6.13.4.jar:?]
	at java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture$UniApply.tryFire(CompletableFuture.java:646) ~[?:?]
	at java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.postComplete(CompletableFuture.java:510) ~[?:?]

[ppatierno]

This error was fixed in newly versions but you can try to add the following env var to your operator deployment:

- name: STRIMZI_KUBERNETES_VERSION
  value: "major=1,minor=33"

[championshuttler]

adding this made it work, thank you, btw whenever 1.34.x AKS comes out, @ppatierno do you think same hack will work as there are no breaking changes in AKS 1.34

[scholzj]

You should probably make sure you are upgrading not only Kubernetes, but also applications like Strimzi running on top of it.

• The 0.45.1 patch release has been out for a pretty long time and fixes the Kube 1.33 release. The 0.47.0 minor release is also out for some time.
• 0.45.0 was released in December 2024. Kubernetes 1.34 was released when? Two weeks ago? Or something like that? So while it probably works on Kube 1.34, nobody really tested it because 1.34 did not exist when 0.45.0 (or even 0.45.1) was released

[championshuttler]

Thank you for the quick response, I get your points and thats the goal, unfortunately as of now our kafka is relying on zookeeper, and I guess it will take bit of time to migrate away from them for the team unfortunately, sorry for creating noise

[scholzj]

No need to apologize 😉. It is just not easy to give a definitive answer for these older releases.