Podman v5.0 on MacOs gives an error when starting a podman machine

[tijder]

Issue Description

After updating Podman to version 5.0 on a MacBook. I couldn't get the podman machine to start.

Steps to reproduce the issue

Steps to reproduce the issue

1. brew uninstall podman
2. rm -rf ~/.ssh/podman-machine-default
3. rm -rf ~/.ssh/podman-machine-default.pub
4. rm -rf ~/.local/share/containers
5. rm -rf ~/.config/containers
6. brew install podman
7. podman machine init
8. podman machine start

Describe the results you received

A podman machine running in the background.

Describe the results you expected

I got an error message in the terminal with:
Error: invalid character '<' looking for beginning of value

podman info output

OS: darwin/arm64
provider: applehv
version: 5.0.0

Cannot connect to Podman. Please verify your connection to the Linux system using `podman system connection list`, or try `podman machine init` and `podman machine start` to manage a new Linux VM
Error: unable to connect to Podman socket: failed to connect: dial tcp 127.0.0.1:52272: connect: connection refused

Podman in a container

No

Privileged Or Rootless

None

Upstream Latest Release

Yes

Additional environment details

Additional environment details

Additional information

I didn't delete the old Podman machine before upgrading. That's why I uninstalled Podman and deleted all the folders of Podman. The I installed it again.

[baude]

are you getting the error on step 8 or when you run a container ?

[tijder]

I get the error on step 8.

[baude]

does podman machine ls work after init? i think i have seen this with invalid json files. how about other commands like podman machine rm ?

could you also post podman --log-level debug machine start ?

[tijder]

This is the output from those three commands:

tijder@LMXJF22XJ9 ~ % podman machine ls
Error: invalid character '<' looking for beginning of value
tijder@LMXJF22XJ9 ~ % podman machine rm
Error: invalid character '<' looking for beginning of value
tijder@LMXJF22XJ9 ~ % podman --log-level debug machine start
INFO[0000] podman filtering at log level debug
DEBU[0000] Using Podman machine with applehv virtualization provider
DEBU[0000] socket length for /Users/tijder/.config/containers/podman/machine/applehv is 57
DEBU[0000] socket length for /Users/tijder/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/applehv is 62
DEBU[0000] socket length for /Users/tijder/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/applehv/cache is 68
DEBU[0000] socket length for /var/folders/pm/kvb439n12c99ynn_fyw_65ww0000gq/T/podman is 55
DEBU[0000] socket length for /Users/tijder/.config/containers/podman/machine/applehv/podman-machine-default.json is 85
Starting machine "podman-machine-default"
DEBU[0000] socket length for /Users/tijder/.config/containers/podman/machine/applehv is 57
DEBU[0000] socket length for /Users/tijder/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/applehv is 62
DEBU[0000] socket length for /Users/tijder/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/applehv/cache is 68
DEBU[0000] socket length for /var/folders/pm/kvb439n12c99ynn_fyw_65ww0000gq/T/podman is 55
DEBU[0000] socket length for /Users/tijder/.config/containers/podman/machine/applehv/podman-machine-default.json is 85
Error: invalid character '<' looking for beginning of value
DEBU[0000] Shutting down engines

[tijder]

This the content of the /Users/tijder/.config/containers/podman/machine/applehv/podman-machine-default.json:

{"Created":"2024-03-26T13:32:19.78151+01:00","GvProxy":{"Debug":false,"MTU":0,"LogFile":"","PidFile":"","SSHPort":0},"HostUser":{"Rootful":false,"UID":503,"HostUserModified":false},"LastUp":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Mounts":[{"OriginalInput":"","ReadOnly":false,"Source":"/Users/tijder","Tag":"Users-tijder","Target":"/Users/tijder","Type":"virtiofs","VSockNumber":null}],"Name":"podman-machine-default","Resources":{"CPUs":6,"DiskSize":100,"Memory":8000,"USBs":[]},"SSH":{"IdentityPath":"/Users/tijder/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/machine","Port":52272,"RemoteUsername":"core"},"Version":1,"ImagePath":{"Path":"/Users/tijder/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/applehv/podman-machine-default-arm64.raw"},"AppleHypervisor":{"Vfkit":{"LogLevel":"panic","Endpoint":"http://localhost:52846","VfkitBinaryPath":null,"VirtualMachine":{"vcpus":6,"memoryBytes":8000,"bootloader":{"kind":"efiBootloader","EFIVariableStorePath":"/Users/tijder/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/applehv/efi-bl-podman-machine-default","CreateVariableStore":true}}}},"Starting":false}

[baude]

based on this, i think it is when we write the configuration file when trying to start the machine. it is def a json operation

[joshuapetryk]

Downgraded to Podman 4.9.2 and now the machine is able to start. (Running on M2 MacOS Sonoma 14.4.1)

[msgilligan]

I was able to get Podman 5.0.2 (installed via Nixpkgs) running on darwin-aarch64 by installing vfkit with Homebrew. see: NixOS/nixpkgs#305868

Update: I opened a separate packaging request for vfkit: NixOS/nixpkgs#306179

[tijder]

After updating to Podman 5.0.3 with brew, Podman is working on my MacBook.