Permission denied using kubectl but able to run helm

Question

I am facing permission denied errors when using kubectl for all commands, be get pods or apply, but I am able to use helm and login with k9s to perform destructive actions. I am using the same context for all of these actions.

kubectl get nodes 
# error: You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized)

kubectl apply -f some-manifest.yaml
# error: You must be logged in to the server (the server has asked for the client to provide credentials)

Does anyone have a hint as to why this is happening or what to look further into? I am using a managed k8s on Vultr, a smaller cloud provider.

Answer 1

I am pretty sure that this is a "kubernetes context" problem

Check the solution here: helm and kubectl context mismatch

Solution for k9s can be found here: https://k9scli.io/topics/commands/

Answer 2

Don't know what specifically the issue was but I rebuilt my .kube/config file slowly with all my contexts and it ended up working again.

Very strange though that helm worked and kubectl didn't though...