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Title
Fix the “can’t spin instances due to duplicate tags” error in Flexera Ocean
When your Flexera Ocean cluster scales up, you might see the following error:
 
Can't spin instances: Code: ValidationError, Message: can't spin spot due to duplicate tags error
 
This error appears when the cluster or virtual node group includes duplicate tags. Ocean requires unique tag keys to launch new instances successfully.
Solution
 
  1. Check your cluster configuration for duplicate custom tags keys.
    • Make sure you haven’t added the same key more than once.
  2. Review your custom tag keys to ensure none of them start with spotinst.
    • Ocean automatically creates scaling tags that begin with spotinst.
    • If you manually create a custom tag with the same prefix, it will be detected as a duplicate.
  3. Remove or rename the duplicate tag entries.
  4. Save your changes and trigger scaling again.

The cluster should now launch new instances without error.

Outcome
After removing the duplicate tags, Flexera Ocean scales up the cluster normally and no longer throws a validation error.
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Fix the “can’t spin instances due to duplicate tags” error in Flexera Ocean