Kubernetes Autoscaling Fails Silently. Here's Why and How to Fix It

Why Your Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler Isn’t Scaling?

Your pods are pending. The nodes aren’t scaling. Logs say nothing.

Sound familiar? You’re not alone.

Most Kubernetes engineers hit this silently frustrating issue. And the truth is, the autoscaler isn’t broken. It’s just misunderstood.

Here’s a sneak peek into what’s really going on:

What You’ll Learn in This Breakdown:

• Why Cluster Autoscaler ignores some pods (even if they're pending)
• How nodeSelector, taints, and affinity rules silently block scaling
• What real Cluster Autoscaler logs actually mean
• The hidden impact of PDBs, PVC zones, and priority classes
• YAML: Before & After examples that fix scaling issues instantly
• Terraform ASG configs for autoscaler to work properly
• Observability patterns + self-healing strategies (Kyverno, alerts, CI/CD)

Here’s a Sample Fix:

Bad Pod Spec (won’t scale):

resources: {}
nodeSelector:
  instance-type: gpu

Fixed YAML (scales properly):

resources:
  requests:
    cpu: "250m"
    memory: "512Mi"
tolerations:
  - key: "app-node"
    operator: "Equal"
    value: "true"
    effect: "NoSchedule"

Want the Full Breakdown?

I’ve published the entire guide, including:

• Real autoscaler logs
• Terraform IAM & ASG configs
• YAML validation checks
• Edge case scenarios no one talks about

👉 Read the full post here on RedSignals:
Why Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler Fails — Fixes, Logs & YAML Inside