Environment

• YBDB Upgrade to 2024.2 and above
• YugabyteDB Anywhere (YBA) running xCluster/Change Data Capture (CDC)

Issue

Upon upgrading to YugabyteDB v2024.2 or later, the upgrade fails, and the yb-tserver service repeatedly crashes with the following symptoms:

[yugabyte@yugabyte-test~]$ systemctl --user status yb-tserver
● yb-tserver.service - Yugabyte tserver service
Loaded: loaded (/opt/yugabyte/.config/systemd/user/yb-tserver.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: core-dump) since Wed 2025-04-02 14:43:51 MST; 1s ago
Process: 2116853 ExecStart=/opt/yugabyte/tserver/bin/yb-tserver --flagfile /opt/yugabyte/tserver/conf/server.conf (code=dumped, signal=ABRT)
Process: 2116834 ExecStartPre=/opt/yugabyte/bin/clock-sync.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 2116853 (code=dumped, signal=ABRT)

The journalctl logs display the following lines:

Mar 27 16:40:38 yugabytem01-3 yb-master[1712934]: E0327 16:40:38.812829 1712934 log.cc:261] Invalid value '14400' for flag 'cdc_wal_retention_time_secs': Must be greater than cdc_intent_retention_ms (in seconds)
Mar 27 16:40:38 yugabytem01-3 yb-master[1712934]: F0327 16:40:38.813004 1712934 flags.cc:681] Check failed: _s.ok() Bad status: Invalid argument (yb/util/flags/flags.cc:864): ERROR: failed validation of new value '14400' for flag 'cdc_wal_retention_time_secs'
Mar 27 16:40:38 yugabytem01-3 yb-master[1712934]: : log.cc:261] Invalid value '14400' for flag 'cdc_wal_retention_time_secs': Must be greater than cdc_intent_retention_ms (in seconds)

Root Cause

Starting with version v2024.2, the default values for certain CDC retention flags have changed:

If cdc_wal_retention_time_secs is explicitly set to a value less than cdc_intent_retention_ms (in seconds), the server fails to start, producing logs such as:

Invalid value '14400' for flag 'cdc_wal_retention_time_secs': Must be greater than cdc_intent_retention_ms (in seconds)
Check failed: _s.ok() Bad status: ERROR: failed validation of new value '14400' for flag 'cdc_wal_retention_time_secs'

Resolution

1. Rollback the Upgrade:

   • Use the rollback feature in YBA to revert the database to the previous version.

2. Adjust the cdc_wal_retention_time_secs Flag:

   • Remove the explicit setting of the cdc_wal_retention_time_secs flag from your configuration.

3. Retry the Upgrade:

   • After making the above adjustments, retry the failed upgrade task from the task page.

By following these steps, you can resolve the startup issue and successfully upgrade to YugabyteDB v2024.2 or later.