Incorrect node count in agent pool

Question

Incorrect node count in agent pool

Yaniv Tzur 5

When using the "Managed Clusters - List" API to list all AKS clusters under our subscription, the node count for some agent pools, in some AKS clusters is higher by 1 than the actual value (but not all agent pools/clusters).
E.g., for a certain agent pool in a certain cluster, the output of the API shows the count is 3:

"agentPoolProfiles": [
    {
        "name": "agentpool",
        "count": 3,

However, the actual number of nodes in the agent pool is 2, as seen for example in the Azure portal (see below screenshot).
User's image

We've encountered the same issue in multiple AKS clusters.
Can you please answer what might cause this kind of discrepancy and how this might be resolved?

1 answer

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Answer 1

Andrei Barbu 2,591 Microsoft Employee

Hello Yaniv!

Thank you for raising this. I can confirm I concluded the same behavior on my side and seems the API is not showing the right value:

        "agentPoolProfiles": [
          {
            "name": "az",
            "count": 3,

User's image

However, it seems the discrepancy only for one node pool, not all of them, at least on my side.

As I am a Microsoft employee, I will check internally and get back to you, but I cannot guarantee an ETA.

Additionally, if this is causing any business impact for you and you would like to report to support, feel free to open a support request.

In any case, I will check and get back to you as soon as I have new information.

In the meantime, let me ask you a question, please. You mentioned this issue happens for multiple AKS clusters. Is it happening for all your AKS clusters or a few of them? If only a few, is there any pattern? For example, is this happening on node pools with Availability Zones only?

Later, if you will find this helpful, I will ask you to "Accept as Answer" and Upvote if it helped, so that it can help others in the community looking for help on similar topics.

Thank you!

Omar McIver 0 Reputation points

2023-05-11T16:01:05.4966667+00:00

I am experiencing the same issue.

To workaround it, I ended up pulling the corresponding VMSS API for the Node Pool infrastructure and using its instance count instead.

I can't identify what the difference is between node pools that report the instance count correctly vs those that report it +1. It is also inconsistent with the portal.
Cristian Gatjens 716 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-05-11T18:10:25.0866667+00:00

Hello Yaniv,

One thing that could be contributing to this mismatch in the node count is if someone deleted a node using "kubectl delete <node_name>" directly from the CLI, this is not recommended and can cause behaviors like the one you described:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/scale-cluster?tabs=azure-cli#scale-the-cluster-nodes

Thanks!
sbli 21 Reputation points

2023-07-13T12:04:57.8133333+00:00

Same problem here, with az cli.

az aks list displays incorrect count of nodes whereas az aks show displays the correct count.
Ben Izhak 0 Reputation points

2023-11-16T10:33:41.64+00:00

Same for me. I see 3 nodes via "kubectl get nodes" while the node pool count is 4.
I tried to send an empty update request but it didn't help.
Anyone managed to sync the node pool with the "real" node count?
Haiqing Zhang 0 Reputation points

2024-08-07T00:00:48.7633333+00:00

Any updates on this case please? same problem using powershell

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Incorrect node count in agent pool

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