Dev Workspace Operator version 4.18 is incorrectly installed on OpenShift 4.17 or older clusters

Solution Verified - Updated

Environment

  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (RHOCP)
    • < 4.18
  • DevWorkspace Operator 4.18 on Red Hat OpenShift

Issue

For several hours on February 3, 2026, Red Hat released 4.18 Red Hat Operators catalog content into 4.12-4.17 clusters. The tags have since been recovered to point at catalogs appropriate for their 4.y. Clusters running 4.12 through 4.17 versions during the window from 2026-02-03 21:16 UTC through 2026-02-04 05:18 UTC were impacted by the 4.18 catalog content.

Specifically, the operators with installPlanApproval:Automatic on Subscription.operators.coreos.com which had updates recommended in the 4.18 catalog had their installed operator version updated to the version present in the 4.18 catalog, regardless of whether that version was appropriate for the version of OCP that the cluster was running.

Resolution

Internal verification and basic regression testing have confirmed that clusters should remain stable and the DevWorkspace Operator should work as intended on older OpenShift versions. No regressions have been observed during validation.

As a Rolling Stream operator, the DevWorkspace Operator maintains a forward-progression update path. All critical fixes are rolled into the latest version of the operator across all supported OLM (Operator Lifecycle Manager) catalogs. This ensures that customers have a verified, public path to receive security updates in their specific environment.

Customers receive updates automatically through the OLM by tracking the fast channel. When a new version of the DevWorkspace Operator is released to address a security vulnerability or bug, it is pushed directly to the fast channel in the Red Hat Operator Catalog.

Root Cause

On 2026-02-03, the v4.18 redhat-operators catalog was accidentally pushed to v4.12 and v4.16 and similar tags. Clusters running those older OCP versions got caught up on that v4.18 content and failed to automatically recover when recovered catalog content was shipped (OCPBUGS-75921). In addition, some clusters had enabled automatic OLM-installed operator updates. For those clusters, if the 4.18 catalog contained recommended update advice from the version the clusters were currently running, the OLM-installed operator would be automatically updated, potentially to a version that is not actually compatible with the version of OCP the cluster is actually running.

Diagnostic Steps

For several hours on February 3, 2026, Red Hat released 4.18 Red Hat Operators catalog content into 4.12-4.17 clusters.

For more information, including Diagnostic Steps, please refer to Red Hat Operator has version higher than the cluster version.

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