Lens Helm Chart version incompatibility with my helm plugin json file

Lens Support & Troubleshooting
1

I have Helm installed before i installed Lens, helm is version
version.BuildInfo{Version:“v3.19.4”, GitCommit:“7cfb6e486dac026202556836bb910c37d847793e”, GitTreeState:“clean”, GoVersion:“go1.24.11”}
the plugin diff version is :

NAME VERSION DESCRIPTION
diff 3.14.1 Preview helm upgrade changes as a diff

when i installed Lens, it can’t read the plugin diff, it gives this message
failed to load plugins: failed to load plugin at “/home/xxxx/.local/share/helm/plugins/helm-diff/plugin.yaml”: error unmarshaling JSON: while decoding JSON: json: unknown field “args”

Seems a helm version incompatibility, I tried to set this variable before starting Lens but it didn’t work
export HELM_NO_PLUGINS=1
Any ideas ?

1 Like
2

Hello @eatai223,

Thank you for reaching out to Lens forum!

I’ll let the dev team about your issue. Stand by for further updates.

Best Regards,
Tikhon Kudinov
Lens Support Engineer
Mirantis, Inc

3

Hello! I was seeing a similar issue with a pre-existing helm installation.

I think the Lens-bundled helm would need to be updated to at least 3.18 in order to operate with the helm-diff plugin installed: GitHub - databus23/helm-diff: A helm plugin that shows a diff explaining what a helm upgrade would change

❯ /Applications/Lens.app/Contents/Resources/arm64/helm version
failed to load plugins: failed to load plugin at "/Users/ChrisSchaaf/Library/helm/plugins/helm-diff/plugin.yaml": error unmarshaling JSON: while decoding JSON: json: unknown field "args"
version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.16.2", GitCommit:"13654a52f7c70a143b1dd51416d633e1071faffb", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.22.7"}

I could confirm that v3.19.5 lets Lens do helm stuff after a refresh. No changes to plugins required. I figure that’s not recommended, but I hope that’s helpful haha.

❯ /Applications/Lens.app/Contents/Resources/arm64/helm version
version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.19.5", GitCommit:"4a19a5b6fb912c5c28a779e73f2e0880d9e239a4", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.24.11"}

Helm 4 does not work for what it’s worth, but I didn’t expect it to given all its CLI changes.

4

+1 also encountering this issue.

Any updates @tkudinov?

5

Hello @dielyn,

Not yet, unfortunately. Fixing this issue in the roadmap for the dev team, but I can’t tell you any ETA.

Best Regards,
Tikhon Kudinov
Lens Support Engineer
Mirantis, Inc

6

Sad to hear.

I used @chris.schaaf’s suggestion to fix it. Thanks Chris!

I downloaded the Helm binary v 3.19.5 and replaced the one in the the /Applications/Lens.app/Contents/Resources/arm64 folder.

Works now for me.

7

Hi all,

Apologies for the long silence here – and thanks to @chris.schaaf for finding the bundled-helm workaround, and to @dielyn for confirming it.

We have improvements queued for an upcoming stable release in how Lens handles non-JSON content (warnings, plugin-load errors) on helm’s stdout. I’ll update this thread once the build is public so anyone still affected can retest.

8

Hi @chris.schaaf and @dielyn,

The build is public – Lens 2026.5.181248-latest at Lens – Download. The Helm-stdout handling improvements (and a couple of related Helm-area fixes) are in this release. If you’ve been running with the manually-swapped helm binary, the stock bundled binary should work again now. Let us know how it looks.