[image-builder] image build sometimes fails due to `MountVolume.SetUp failed for volume "gitpod-ca-certificate"`
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Description
Bug description
The error was:
MountVolume.SetUp failed for volume "gitpod-ca-certificate" : failed to sync secret cache: timed out waiting for the condition
As a user, I saw:

Steps to reproduce
n/a
the error is rare and intermittent
Workspace affected
n/a
Expected behavior
We should be able to mount the gitpod CA cert if the workspace container is in a good state, do the image build, and then start a workspace from it.
If we cannot mount the cert, we won't be able to pull images through registry-facade for the imagebuild workspace, and we should log the state of the pod to better understand why.
Example repository
No response
Anything else?
We might need to wait longer when creating a workspace pod, before trying to use its underlying mounts that are dependent on a secret. Example where we had to wait longer for a secret that is created at runtime. In this case, we're unable to mount a secret that was defined at install time, and then owned by cert-manager.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the linked logs and the image-builder workspace pod creation flow, then inspect install/installer/pkg/common/constants.go and compare the approach in PR #15378. Determine why the gitpod-ca-certificate secret mount times out, ensure pod state is logged when mounting fails, and verify that image builds can proceed when the workspace container is healthy.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- kubernetes
- Domain
- devops, infrastructure
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100