Helm Error "Error: This Command Needs 2 Arguments: Release Name, Chart Path"

I encountered this error when I do --set key value instead of --set key=value. The cause was as stupid as the error message.

Helm upgrade requires both a release name and the chart it references. From the documentation:

Usage: helm upgrade [RELEASE] [CHART] [flags]

According to the documentation for the --install flag, the command you referenced seems like it should work, but it may be due to differing Helm versions.

helm install soluto/kamus works for me.

I had similar error too. Turned out that the problem was the values that I've been passing as argument. So take this example:

helm upgrade my-release ./mychart --set mypropert.name=${MY_PROP}

If the value of ${MY_PROP} has some whitespace or dash - or some other strange characters you get that misleading error. So ensure you enclose your arguments with single-quote:

helm upgrade my-release ./mychart --set 'mypropert.name=${MY_PROP}'

I ran into this error (too) many times.

The first thing that should come to your mind is typos in the command.

For example:

1. If you're passing location of values.yaml with -f <path-to-values.yaml> you should make sure its in the relevant order related to flags that were passed.
2. If you're passing inline values with the --set flag you should make sure that there are no whitespace in the variable assignment like in this case: --set someVar= $SomeValue.

Run helm help upgrade or helm help install to get more information about each commands.

May be this detailed information will be helpful for someone new to this !

1. My helm files are here (I made changes in values.yaml to upgrade):

controlplane $ pwd
/root/existing2helm
controlplane $ ls
Chart.yaml  charts  templates  values.yaml

2. Listing current releases

controlplane $ helm list 
NAME            NAMESPACE       REVISION        UPDATED                                 STATUS          CHART                   APP VERSION
newdeploybyhelm default         2               2021-02-01 00:39:11.596751325 +0000 UTC deployed        existing2helm-0.1.0     1.16.0     

3. Finally executing the upgrade command

controlplane $ helm upgrade newdeploybyhelm /root/existing2helm
Release "newdeploybyhelm" has been upgraded. Happy Helming!
NAME: newdeploybyhelm
LAST DEPLOYED: Mon Feb  1 00:48:30 2021
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: deployed

I got this error when I add first line parameters

--install --create-namespace --wait --atomic

to the end of the parameter list again. You may want to check duplicate parameters, or duplicate --install command if you are using a parameter builder.