Encountering error when using eksctl to create a node group: "exceeded max wait time for StackCreateComplete waiter"

Question

Originally tried to setup a new cluster with an initial node group, then setup up a cluster without a node group and attempted to add a nodegroup afterwards.

1st attempt:

`eksctl create cluster -n cluster-test --nodegroup-name ng01 --node-type t3.micro --nodes 2 --version 1.26 --verbose 4` (failed: "exceeded max wait time for StackCreateComplete waiter")

2nd attempt:

a. `eksctl create cluster -n cluster02 --version 1.26 --zones us-east-1c,us-east-1d --without-nodegroup` (successful)

b. `eksctl create nodegroup -c cluster02 --name ng01 --node-type t3.micro --verbose 4` (failed: "exceeded max wait time for StackCreateComplete waiter")

Looking inside CloudFormation, both of these failed within the managed nodegroup stack and were successfully rolled back.
The CreateFailed event shows this status:

`Resource handler returned message: "[Issue(Code=AsgInstanceLaunchFailures, Message=Instance became unhealthy while waiting for instance to be in InService state. Termination Reason: Client.InternalError: Client error on launch, ResourceIds=[...]), Issue(Code=NodeCreationFailure, Message=Instances failed to join the kubernetes cluster, ResourceIds=[...])] (Service: null, Status Code: 0, Request ID: null)" (RequestToken: ..., HandlerErrorCode: GeneralServiceException)`

I'm new to EKS and Kubernetes in general, so completely ignorant as to what i should really be looking at to resolve this.

All help is appreciated.

Kumudhan Cherarajan · Answer

There could be multiple reasons for nodes not joining a cluster. You can try creating and attaching the nodegroup to an existing cluster with the following command once and check 
```
eksctl create nodegroup \
--cluster cluster02 \
-- name ng01 \
--node-type t3.large \
--nodes 2 \
--nodes-min 1 \
--nodes-max 2 \
--node-private-networking \
--managed=false
```
Note: Use `--managed=false` or `--managed=true` based on your usecase. 
Apart from this, Here is a detailed support-center article that you can follow to identify the cause for the failure and resolve the issue - https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/eks-worker-nodes-cluster/

Encountering error when using eksctl to create a node group: "exceeded max wait time for StackCreateComplete waiter"

Relevant content