Kubernetes CrashLoopBackOff: Root Cause and Fix (With Real Examples)

Kubernetes CrashLoopBackOff: Root Cause and Fix (With Real Examples) NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE my-app-pod 0/1 CrashLoopBackOff 8 4m You've seen this. Your pod is stuck in a death loop and you don't know why. CrashLoopBackOff is not a Kubernetes bug. It means your container started, crashed, Kubernetes tried to restart it, and it crashed again — repeatedly, with increasing back-off delays. Here's how to find the real cause and fix it. Step 1: Get the Crash Logs # Get logs from the PREVIOUS (crashed) container instance kubectl logs <pod-name> --previous # If multiple containers in the pod kubectl logs <pod-name> -c <container-name> --previous The --previous flag is critical. Without it, you might get logs from the brand-new (about to crash) instance. Real output examples: Error: Cannot find module '/app/server.js' at Function.Module._resolveFilename → Wrong entrypoint in Dockerfile Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:5432 → Database isn't reachable from inside th