This issue is found when working on #39906. This is a different issue from #39906. It affects all 1.5.x and master.

The error message is

error: unable to decode "../pkiobj.json": no kind "Pki" is registered for version "box-pki.com/v1"

kubectl apply and edit are broken for TPR in branch 1.5 and master.
The reason is the function call of Decode(). It fails to decode the data.

Anything else do we need to know:
1.4.7 is working, but 1.4.8 is not, because of #39396.
Similar patch #38982 has been introduced in 1.5.2, but both 1.5.1 and 1.5.2 are broken for TPR. apply fails without even reaching the code introduced in #38982.

@liggitt @deads2k @pwittrock @kubernetes/sig-cli-misc