container system start stalling

[saehejkang]

First time cloning the repo and building the project. I followed the steps in the BUILDING.md file but am getting a weird error. Every time I run the start command or run the integration tests, it stalls on the step below.

Verifying apiserver is running...

Am I missing something else I need to run in the background? Are the docs for setup outdated?

[katiewasnothere]

Hi @saehejkang can you confirm that your system meets the project requirements mentioned here?

If so, could run bin/container system logs --follow in one shell, reproduce the issue in another, then copy the output from the logs command and provide them here?

[saehejkang]

First time using launctl bootout and I am getting an error. Looking up stuff online and am still unsure how to resolve this issue 🤔

Boot-out failed: 5: Input/output error

[saehejkang]

pgrep -lf com.apple.container shows nothing as actually even running

[katiewasnothere]

What do you get from launchctl managername?

Can you try running launchctl reboot userspace?

Have you tried rebooting?

[saehejkang]

Rebooting my computer solved the issues and I should have maybe tried that a while back 🤦🏽‍♂️. At least I was able to learn some debugging tips/tricks for the future!

container system status

apiserver is running
application data root: /Users/sk/Library/Application Support/com.apple.container/
application install root: /usr/local/
container-apiserver version: container-apiserver version 0.5.0-11-g2535b4b (build: debug, commit: 2535b4b)
container-apiserver commit: 2535b4b909dc8a31858c407baabe48a6d6bb680d

I made a fix here #742 to remove our use of StandardOutPath and StandardErrorPath in plists for our services so you should just be able to pull main and try from there to see if that resolves your issue!

The fix above would also be a solution to any issues I was having in the past.

[katiewasnothere]

Glad we got it working!

[hqzqaq]

Hi @saehejkang can you confirm that your system meets the project requirements mentioned here?Hi @saehejkang can you confirm that your system meets the project requirements mentioned here?嗨，@saehejkang，你能确认你的系统符合这里提到的项目要求吗？

If so, could run bin/container system logs --follow in one shell, reproduce the issue in another, then copy the output from the logs command and provide them here?If so, could run bin/container system logs --follow in one shell, reproduce the issue in another, then copy the output from the logs command and provide them here?如果是这样的话，能否在一个shell中运行bin/container system logs --follow，在另一个shell中重现该问题，然后复制日志命令的输出并提供到这里？
I am running the container on an externally mounted disk. Could this environment configuration potentially impact the performance or stability of the service?

Here are the logs from running the container system logs --follow command:

hqzqaq@hqzqaqdeMac-mini-2 ~ % container system logs --follow
Filtering the log data using "subsystem ==[cd] "com.apple.container""
Timestamp                       Thread     Type        Activity             PID    TTL  
2026-03-19 10:05:47.364164+0800 0x30af88   Info        0x0                  7090   0    container-network-vmnet: [com.apple.container:NetworkVmnetHelper] starting container-network-vmnet [id=default]
2026-03-19 10:05:47.364650+0800 0x30af88   Info        0x0                  7090   0    container-network-vmnet: [com.apple.container:NetworkVmnetHelper] configuring XPC server [id=default]
2026-03-19 10:05:47.365951+0800 0x30af88   Info        0x0                  7090   0    container-network-vmnet: [com.apple.container:NetworkVmnetHelper] creating vmnet network [id=default]
2026-03-19 10:05:47.365974+0800 0x30af88   Info        0x0                  7090   0    container-network-vmnet: [com.apple.container:NetworkVmnetHelper] created vmnet network [id=default]
2026-03-19 10:05:47.366695+0800 0x30af88   Info        0x0                  7090   0    container-network-vmnet: [com.apple.container:NetworkVmnetHelper] starting vmnet network [mode=nat] [id=default]
2026-03-19 10:05:47.374231+0800 0x30af88   Error       0x0                  7090   0    container-network-vmnet: [com.apple.container:NetworkVmnetHelper] container-network-vmnet failed [id=default] [error=unsupported: "failed to create vmnet network with status vmnet_return_t(rawValue: 1001)"]

[jglogan]

@hqzqaq Thanks for the logs! Let's continue the discussion on #1319.