ImagePullBackOff Kubernetes Origin: Platform & cloud Last updated 13 Oct 2026

Kubernetes: ImagePullBackOff / ErrImagePull

The node can’t pull the container image — wrong name/tag, missing registry credentials, or registry unreachable.

Exact message you may see Failed to pull imagemanifest unknownpull access denied
Explore the map of this error Full error map →
Seen on: Kubernetes Docker

Meaning

kubectl describe pod shows the exact pull error: “not found”, “unauthorized”, “manifest unknown”, or a network timeout.

Common causes

  • Typo in image name or tag
  • Tag doesn’t exist (pushed under a different tag)
  • Private registry without imagePullSecrets
  • Expired registry credentials (ECR tokens last 12h)
  • Image built for a different CPU architecture
  • Registry rate limits (Docker Hub)

⚡ Quick fix

  1. kubectl describe pod → Events for the precise error
  2. Verify the image exists: docker pull <image>
  3. Create and reference an imagePullSecret
  4. Build multi-arch images (amd64/arm64)

Detailed fix by platform

Kubernetes

  1. Registry secret:
    bash
    kubectl create secret docker-registry regcred \
  --docker-server=ghcr.io --docker-username=USER --docker-password=TOKEN
# then in the pod spec: imagePullSecrets: [{ name: regcred }]

How to diagnose

  1. Events — Exact pull error?
  2. Image — Name/tag exist?
  3. Auth — Pull secret configured?

🔧 Still not fixed?

Many errors look alike. If the steps above didn’t solve it, one of these is probably what you’re facing:

Where this error sits

Origin: Platform & cloud. Errors that are often confused with or caused by this one (click to open):

1011 — Cloudflare Error 1011: Access denied (Hotlinking denied) (Cloudflare)1011401 — HTTP 401 Unauthorized (HTTP)401429 — HTTP 429 Too Many Requests (HTTP)429ACR unauthorized — Azure Container Registry: unauthorized: authentication required, visit https://aka.ms/acr/authorization (AKS ErrImagePull 401) (Azure)ACR unauthorizedCannotPullContainerError — ECS task stopped: CannotPullContainerError: pull image manifest has been retried ... / ref pull has been retried (AWS)CannotPullContainerEr…ComparisonError: manifest generation failed — Argo CD: ComparisonError: rpc error: code = Unknown desc = Manifest generation error (cached): kustomize build failed (CI/CD)ComparisonError: mani…CrashLoopBackOff — Kubernetes: CrashLoopBackOff (Kubernetes)CrashLoopBackOffexec format error — exec /usr/local/bin/docker-entrypoint.sh: exec format error (Docker)exec format errorImagePull…

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