How to Fix "client rate limiter Wait returned an error" in Kubernetes

How do I?
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1

The Problem

When trying to collect logs or run support bundles in Kubernetes, you might encounter this error:

failed to get log stream: client rate limiter Wait returned an error: context deadline exceeded

This happens when Kubernetes API rate limiting is too restrictive.

The Root Cause

In some cases, the kube-proxy-config ConfigMap had rate limits that were too low:

clientConnection:
  burst: 10    # Too low
  qps: 5       # Too low

The Fix

  • Check your current settings:
kubectl get configmap kube-proxy-config -n kube-system -o yaml
  • Update the ConfigMap:
kubectl edit configmap kube-proxy-config -n kube-system
  • Increase these values:
clientConnection:
  burst: 100   # Recommended: 100-120
  qps: 20      # Recommended: 20-25

How to Verify

After applying these changes, run your support bundle operation again. The “client rate limiter” error should be gone, and operations should complete successfully.

Additional Tips

  • EKS-specific: For AWS EKS clusters, be aware that the control plane has scaling limits:
    • The EKS control plane scales automatically as your cluster grows, but not immediately
    • For more details, see the AWS EKS Best Practices Guide