Can't change chart name without triggering uninstall (flux 2.2.x)

[artem-nefedov]

We were relying on ability to change chart name (spec.chart.spec.chart field) in existing HelmRelease without deletion of underlying resources. The charts in question are similar internally, but are stored with different names. This worked fine in flux 2.1.x and older, but since 2.2.x we noticed that changing chart name would always trigger uninstall and re-install from scratch, which causes problems.

Controller log contains the following line:

release target configuration changed (chart name): running uninstall for current release

It looks like these are responsible code parts:
https://github.com/fluxcd/helm-controller/blob/v0.37.2/internal/controller/helmrelease_controller.go#L321
https://github.com/fluxcd/helm-controller/blob/v0.37.2/internal/action/verify.go#L69

It would be great if there was at least an option to disable uninstall in such scenario, especially since it was working perfectly fine before. It would be helpful even in simple scenarios where chart maintainer decided to change chart name, and sudden uninstall can lead to nasty side effects, especially if chart installs CRDs. I'm not in the clear why such dependency is even needed, given that release name is not tied to chart name.

[Subetov]

I encountered the same problem. =(
We really need at least a way or an option to change this behavior optionally.