Waiting for the metadata service error EC2? We can help you.

Recently, one of our customers was unable to retrieve instance metadata using Amazon EC2 Windows instance.

Here, at Bobcares, we assist our customers with several AWS queries as part of our AWS Support Services.

Today, let us see how to fix this error.

Waiting for the metadata service error EC2

With this error, there are two scenarios we need to take into consideration. Moving ahead, let us discuss the same and see how our Support Techs fix this error.

EC2 instance in a VPC is inaccessible and fails instance status checks

In this case, we attach a second elastic network interface to the instance to provide the route and a valid IP address.

Doing so allows us to:

• Access the EC2 instance on the second network interface.
• Resolve issues with the networking configuration of the primary network interface.

EC2 instance pass both status checks and is accessible

Here, to solve, we first route print command from PowerShell or CMD.

Then we review the output to confirm if there is a route similar to the following:

Network Address Netmask Gateway Address
169.254.169.254 255.255.255.255 <Subnet Router Address>

Suppose, it doesn’t or the Gateway Address doesn’t match that of the current subnet. In that case, our Support Techs recommend the following:

Initially, we need to confirm that the latest version of EC2Config or EC2Launch is installed on the instance.

Then to apply the route to the instance, we restart the EC2Config service.

Or, we can run the following command from a PowerShell session:

Import-Module c:\ProgramData\Amazon\EC2-
Windows\Launch\Module\Ec2Launch.psm1 ; Add-Routes

Now, suppose the route exists, but the instance is still unable to retrieve metadata.

Then we review the instance’s Windows Firewall, third-party firewall, or antivirus configuration. We confirm that traffic to 169.254.169.254 isn’t explicitly denied.

[Need help with the fix? We’d be happy to help]

Conclusion

In short, we saw how our Support Techs fix this error for our customers.