When updating the tuningConfig of a NodePool to point to a different ConfigMap, the NodePool becomes stuck in the Updating state. The error indicates that more than one ConfigMap status is detected, even though the tuningConfig list references only a single ConfigMap.
Additionally, stale status ConfigMaps remain for each NodePool that was updated. The issue resolves only after manually deleting the old ConfigMap.

MCE version: 2.9
Hypershift operator Image: registry.redhat.io/multicluster-engine/hypershift-rhel9-operator@sha256:f8c3898e29f8c0a20c3be92bc4ee5a9443b9fc8218db95ba541fe3e57a89c40d

always    

    1. Create a NodePool and reference Performance Profile ConfigMap  in the tuningConfig.
    2. Update the NodePool to reference different ConfigMap instead.
    3. Observe the NodePool status.     

[root@helix33 ~]#  oc describe np/europa | tail -n 5  
Events:
  Type     Reason          Age                    From                 Message
  ----     ------          ----                   ----                 -------
  Warning  ReconcileError  29m (x3 over 29m)      nodepool-controller  failed to reconcile NTO: failed to mirror configs: failed to validate mirrored configs: more than a single KubeletConfig ConfigMap is associated with NodePool europa. please delete the redundant configs: NTO generated KubeletConfigs [kubeletconfig-performance-europa kubeletconfig-performance-2-europa] user provided KubeletConfigs []

[root@helix33 ~]# oc logs pod/operator-7c7964ff7b-mql8s -n hypershift

{"level":"error","ts":"2025-09-30T17:20:06Z","msg":"Failed to reconcile NodePool","controller":"nodepool","controllerGroup":"hypershift.openshift.io","controllerKind":"NodePool","NodePool":

{"name":"europa","namespace":"clusters"},"namespace":"clusters","name":"europa","reconcileID":"fcc1244a-56cd-410a-9f3d-70ac9fe2eee5","error":"failed to reconcile NTO: failed to mirror configs: failed to validate mirrored configs: more than a single KubeletConfig ConfigMap is associated with NodePool europa. please delete the redundant configs: NTO generated KubeletConfigs [kubeletconfig-performance-2-europa kubeletconfig-performance-europa] user provided KubeletConfigs []","stacktrace":"github.com/openshift/hypershift/hypershift-operator/controllers/nodepool.(*NodePoolReconciler).Reconcile\n\t/hypershift/hypershift-operator/controllers/nodepool/nodepool_controller.go:213\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller[...]).Reconcile\n\t/hypershift/vendor/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:116\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller[...]).reconcileHandler\n\t/hypershift/vendor/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:303\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller[...]).processNextWorkItem\n\t/hypershift/vendor/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:263\nsigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller.(*Controller[...]).Start.func2.2\n\t/hypershift/vendor/sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/internal/controller/controller.go:224"} 

[root@helix33 ~]# oc get cm -A | grep performance
clusters-europa                                    kubeletconfig-performance-2-europa                                1      27m
clusters-europa                                    kubeletconfig-performance-europa                                  1      27h
clusters-europa                                    machineconfig-performance-2-europa                                1      27m
clusters-europa                                    machineconfig-performance-europa                                  1      27h
clusters-europa                                    performance-2-europa                                              1      27m
clusters-europa                                    performance-europa                                                1      27h
clusters-europa                                    status-performance-2-europa                                       1      27m
clusters-europa                                    status-performance-europa                                         1      27h
clusters-europa                                    tuned-performance-2-europa                                        1      27m
clusters-europa                                    tuned-performance-europa                                          1      27h 

    The nodepool should update and new config map configurations be applied on the Hosted cluster.