A cluster is failing to pull more recent versions of images from k8s.gcr.io. Why may this be?

The Kubernetes project has officially migrated its container image registry from k8s.gcr.io to registry.k8s.io. As of April 3, 2023, the k8s.gcr.io registry was frozen, meaning no new images or updates are published to it. Consequently, any attempt to pull image versions released after this date from the old k8s.gcr.io address will fail because they do not exist there. The cluster must be updated to pull images from the new registry.k8s.io endpoint to access the latest versions.

A. A network issue would likely cause all image pulls from the registry to fail, not just those for more recent versions.
B. While a bug is possible, the announced and implemented deprecation of the registry is a far more direct and certain cause for this specific issue.
C. Images on k8s.gcr.io are public, and pulling them does not typically require authentication credentials, making this an unlikely cause.

1. Kubernetes Blog. (2023, March 20). k8s.gcr.io Redirect to registry.k8s.io - What You Need to Know. Kubernetes.io. Retrieved from https://kubernetes.io/blog/2023/03/10/image-registry-redirect/. In the "What is changing?" section, it states, "On Monday, April 3, 2023, we will redirect traffic from k8s.gcr.io to registry.k8s.io."

2. Kubernetes Documentation. Registry k8s.io: replacing k8s.gcr.io. Retrieved from https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/k8s-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#registry-k8s-io. The documentation explicitly states, "The Kubernetes project runs a container image registry at registry.k8s.io to host the container images it manages. This replaces the legacy registry, k8s.gcr.io."

3. Kubernetes Blog. (2022, November 28). k8s.gcr.io is going away, what you need to know. Kubernetes.io. Retrieved from https://kubernetes.io/blog/2022/11/28/registry-k8s-io-faster-cheaper-ga/. The "Timeline" section details the plan to freeze the k8s.gcr.io registry in April 2023.