If an upgrade fails to boot, Talos will roll back to the previous version. Likewise, Talos may be manually rolled back via API (or talosctl rollback), which will update the boot reference and reboot.

April 19, 2025 - talosctl --nodes $CTL1_IP upgrade-k8s --to 1.35.4 --dry-run automatically detected the lowest Kubernetes version 1.35.2 discovered controlplane nodes ["192.168.50.180" "192.168.50.181" "192.168.50.182"] discovered worker nodes ["192.168.50.183" "192.168.50.184" "192.168.50.185" "192.168.50.186" "192.168.50.187" "192.168.50.188"] compatibility check failed on node "192.168.50.180": compatibility with version 1.13.0 is not supported

March 3, 2026 - # Symptom: upgrade command returns ... 192.168.1.10 talosctl get resolvers --nodes 192.168.1.10 # Fix: Use the correct image reference or fix network issues # Then retry the upgrade talosctl upgrade --nodes 192.168.1.10 \ --image ...

June 11, 2025 - user: warning: [2025-06-11T15:35:19.905903132Z]: pre-flight checks failed: component kubelet version issue: version of Kubernetes 1.32.5 is too new to be used with Talos 1.6.8 user: warning: [2025-06-11T15:35:20.071014132Z]: [talos] task upgrade (1/1): failed: task "upgrade" failed: exit code 1 user: warning: [2025-06-11T15:35:21.809719132Z]: [talos] phase upgrade (10/14): failed user: warning: [2025-06-11T15:35:21.809821132Z]: [talos] upgrade sequence: failed user: warning: [2025-06-11T15:35:21.809840132Z]: [talos] upgrade failed: error running phase 10 in upgrade sequence: task 1/1: failed,

January 24, 2025 - # Define node IPs export CONTROL_NODE="10.121.0.10" export WORKER1="10.121.0.11" export WORKER2="10.121.0.12" export WORKER3="10.121.0.13" export WORKER4="10.121.0.14" Since direct upgrades from 1.6.1 to 1.9.2 are not supported, we needed to perform incremental upgrades using images created at factory.talos.dev. The upgrade path followed was: 1.6.1 → 1.6.8 → 1.7.7 → 1.8.4 → 1.9.2 · Control plane node upgrades: talosctl -n ${CONTROL_NODE} upgrade --image factory.talos.dev/installer/2dcd442954d67662d41c61bdb92165aaf7189aff9997bd011b6968c12ce8d9c0:v1.6.8 talosctl -n ${CONTROL_NODE} upgra

March 3, 2026 - Make sure the Talos version you are upgrading to supports the Kubernetes version you want to run: # Check current Kubernetes version kubectl version # The Talos release notes specify which Kubernetes versions are supported ...

January 27, 2026 - When attempting to run talosctl upgrade on a single-node cluster running on Oracle Cloud (ARM/A1.Flex), the process hangs indefinitely at the validating image... stage. The issue occurs on a fresh installation (bootstrapped via Netboot.xyz/NixOS). The console logs on the node show the upgrade request is received and validation starts, but no further progress is logged. The upgrade proceeds successfully if the --force flag is used. However the manual notes that this options "skip checks on etcd health and members, might lead to data loss", which makes this feel like a uncomfortable workaround.

September 13, 2025 - Bug Report Description It doesn't happen every time, but often when doing an upgrade the process will just hang while the node goes and completes the upgrade in the background. Logs "talos-123": waiting for actor ID "talos-345": waiting ...

November 20, 2024 - This image below shows some of those messages of pulling down the images and then later on some more info on the dry run process, my assumption is that there was nothing saying fail so we can proceed with the actual upgrade here. The next step was to actually perform that jump, minus the –dry-run command flag. This can be done on one node and the whole cluster will be checked against is again my understanding. talosctl --nodes 192.168.169.211 --endpoints 192.168.169.211 --talosconfig=talosconfig upgrade-k8s --to 1.28.6

March 3, 2026 - You should not skip minor versions: # Correct: Upgrade from 1.28 to 1.29 talosctl upgrade-k8s --nodes 192.168.1.10 --to 1.29.0 # Then from 1.29 to 1.30 talosctl upgrade-k8s --nodes 192.168.1.10 --to 1.30.0 # Incorrect: Do NOT skip from 1.28 to 1.30 # talosctl upgrade-k8s --nodes 192.168.1.10 --to 1.30.0 # if currently on 1.28

March 3, 2026 - If the node booted the new version but has issues (services not starting, Kubernetes not working, etc.), you can manually roll back by upgrading to the previous version: # Roll back to the previous Talos version talosctl upgrade --nodes 192.168.1.10 ...

May 15, 2026 - So now I seem to be stuck with Talos 1.13.2 and k8s 1.30.3. And both talosconfig apply ... and talosctl upgrade-k8s --to 1.31.0 refuse to do anything (see below).

December 11, 2025 - root@TALOS-OPERATOR:~# talosctl -n "$(kubectl get nodes -o wide | awk 'NR==2 {print $6}')" --talosconfig=talosconfig upgrade-k8s --to 1.29.14 automatically detected the lowest Kubernetes version 1.28.3 discovered controlplane nodes ["xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"] discovered worker nodes [] > "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx": Talos version 1.11.5 is compatible with Kubernetes version 1.29.14 checking for removed Kubernetes component flags checking for removed Kubernetes API resource versions > "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx": pre-pulling registry.k8s.io/kube-apiserver:v1.29.14 > "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx": pre-pulling registry.k8s.io/kube-cont

January 20, 2025 - I cannot upgrade Talos (currently on 1.8.2) because the cluster is not shutting down all pods properly, and Talos is reverting the upgrade. The upgrade command is talosctl upgrade --nodes 10.0.50.1 --image factory.talos.dev/installer/01afe9cdcc0d4f3c7de8b551795019845eed0eafcf87aa2dd264af999aabc9a0:v1.9.2 --preserve --timeout=2h0m0s.

November 6, 2025 - Feature Request Description Context: #12132 TL;DR: talos upgrade performs no validation if the chosen image is compatible with the node. To make matters worse, the --image option has a default argument, which upgrades the node to a "defa...

May 29, 2025 - Running talosctl upgrade-k8s -n <control-plane-node-ip> --to 1.33.1, it went over the nodes of nodegroup A quickly, since they were already upgraded (logs contained successfully updated for their IPs).

January 21, 2025 - In my homelab, I am comfortable blasting through upgrades with a for loop, so my upgrade command looks like this: for node in 11 12 13 21 22 23 31 32 33; do talosctl upgrade -n 10.0.50.$node --image factory.talos.dev/installer/88d1f7a5c4f1d3aba7df787c448c1d3d008ed29cfb34af53fa0df4336a56040b:v1.9.2 --preserve; done

February 27, 2026 - Today I updated from Talos Linux 1.11.2 to 1.12.4. I did this by starting with the control plane nodes, and ran talosctl upgrade -n <IP> --image ghcr.io/siderolabs/installer:v1.12.4, one node at a time. The first two nodes went exactly as I would expect: They were draining, then went down, then came back with "post check passed". After each node I ran talosctl ectd status to confirm everything should still work and all nodes are on the same raft index.