AKS managed Gateway API blocks the ALB controller

This article details a technical issue encountered when setting up Application Gateway for Containers (AGC) as an ingress layer on an AKS cluster. The author describes a deadlock where the managed ALB controller (v1.11.1) required Gateway API CRDs v1.2.1, but the AKS managed Gateway API add-on provided older CRDs (v1beta1 for ReferenceGrant). The managed add-on prevented manual CRD upgrades and could not be removed due to dependency. The solution involved disabling both managed add-ons, manually installing the correct Gateway API CRDs, and deploying the ALB controller via Helm, which resolved the stuck Gateway and 504 errors.