---
name: containers-ts-vpc-lb-sg-protocol-fail
title: 'VPC clusters: Security group protocol error creating or updating a LoadBalancer'
description: '[Virtual Private Cloud]'
last-updated: 2026-03-17
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/containers?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# VPC clusters: Security group protocol error creating or updating a LoadBalancer
{: #vpc_ts_lb_security_group_error}
{: support}

[Virtual Private Cloud]{: tag-vpc}

Creating or updating a `LoadBalancer` service in your VPC cluster fails with cluster event similar to the following.
{: tsSymptoms}


```txt
error unmarshalling property 'security_groups' as []vpcv1.SecurityGroup: error unmarshalling property 'rules' as []vpcv1.SecurityGroupRuleIntf: unrecognized value for discriminator property 'protocol':
```
{: screen}

You can review cluster events by running the following commands.
```sh
kubectl get events -A | grep protocol
```
{: pre}

```sh
kubectl describe svc -A
```
{: pre}


These errors, as well as related problems with Ingress and Load Balancers, are caused by both of the following conditions being true
{: tsCauses}

- The cluster master being at an old patch version prior to the January 2026 patch.
- A security group rule in your account that uses one of the newly introduced protocol options, including the new **Any** protocol option.


To solve this you need to do one of the following
{: tsResolve}

- Patch update your cluster master to at least the January 2026 patch
- Remove any security group rules in your account that use one of the newly introduced protocol options
- Change any rules that use the new protocols back to one of the older `tcp`, `udp`, `icmp`, or the combined `tcp-udp-icmp` protocol options

For more information, see [Updating to the 2025-12-09 version security group and network ACL rules](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-2025-12-09-migration-security-group-network-acl-rules&format=markdown)