The Infinite Restart Loop
Your pods are stuck in CrashLoopBackOff. The deployment is failing.
The Scenario
A routine deployment to your Kubernetes cluster has gone sideways. Pods are crashing immediately after startup, entering CrashLoopBackOff. The previous version was working fine. Kubernetes is exponentially backing off restarts, and your service is completely down. You need to diagnose what changed and get the pods running again.
What You'll Learn
Reading kubectl describe pod output for crash diagnostics
Analyzing container exit codes and restart reasons
Using kubectl logs --previous to see crash output
Common CrashLoopBackOff causes: config maps, secrets, health checks, resource limits
Tools You'll Use
Real-World Context
CrashLoopBackOff is the most common Kubernetes failure mode. Every team running K8s has hit this - from startups to Google's own GKE customers.
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