# Kustomize render failures: mapping key already defined

**URL:** <https://community.replicated.com/t/kustomize-render-failures-mapping-key-already-defined/1512>\
**Category:** Troubleshooting\
**Tags:** kots, v1beta1\
**Created:** [May 1, 2025, 6:17am UTC](https://community.replicated.com/t/kustomize-render-failures-mapping-key-already-defined/1512 "2025-05-01T06:17:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GerardNguyen](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.replicated.com/gerardnguyen/32/828_2.png) [@GerardNguyen](https://community.replicated.com/u/GerardNguyen)\
**Post date:** [May 1, 2025, 6:17am UTC](https://community.replicated.com/t/kustomize-render-failures-mapping-key-already-defined/1512/1 "2025-05-01T06:17:20Z")

</div>

When saving configuration changes in the **KOTS Admin Console** configuration screen, you may encounter the following error `failed to render archive directory`

By inspecting the `kotsadm` pod logs, you might see an error stack similar to:

```auto
rewrite directory: failed to write rendered: failed to write kustomize rendered: failed to render charts archive: failed to walk charts directory: failed to kustomize…
…
yaml: unmarshal errors:
line 15: mapping key “apiVersion” already defined at line 2
line 16: mapping key “kind” already defined at line 3
line 17: mapping key “metadata” already defined at line 4

```

This occurs when **multiple Kubernetes objects are defined in the same YAML file** without proper separation, leading to YAML parsing errors.

## How to Identify the Problematic File

You can quickly locate files that define multiple top-level resources (e.g., multiple `apiVersion` entries) using the following command in the app release directory:

```bash
ag -c "apiVersion:" | ag -v "\:1"

```

Example output

```auto
/charts/.../deployment.yaml:2
/charts/.../serviceaccount-template.yml:2
/charts/.../system-update-job.yml:2

```

These results indicate that the file defines more than one object, potentially without the required separation.

## **Resolution Steps**

- **Verify templates:** Ensure that templates use the YAML document separator (`---`) correctly between multiple objects. This separator should be followed by a line break.
- **Separate manifests:** Alternatively, consider splitting each resource into its own dedicated YAML file.

## **Important Note**

This issue occurs **only with v1beta1 Helm Charts** and does **not affect v1beta2 Helm Charts**.

## **Migration**

To avoid this and similar issues, consider migrating your charts to v1beta2. Refer to the official migration guide: [Migrate Existing Installations to HelmChart v2 | Replicated Docs](https://docs.replicated.com/vendor/helm-v2-migrate)