abiosoft/colima · error

error deleting %s: %w

Error message

error deleting %s: %w

What it means

During `colima kubernetes reset`, the old cluster is torn down first via k.Teardown; if that fails, the command aborts BEFORE Provision/Start, wrapping the cause as 'error deleting Kubernetes: %w'. Teardown removes k3s cluster state inside the guest, so failures usually mean the guest is unresponsive or the k3s artifacts are in a bad state.

Source

Thrown at cmd/kubernetes.go:115

var kubernetesResetCmd = &cobra.Command{
	Use:   "reset",
	Short: "reset the Kubernetes cluster",
	Long: `Reset the Kubernetes cluster.

This resets the Kubernetes cluster and all Kubernetes objects
will be deleted.

The Kubernetes images are cached making the startup (after reset) much faster.`,
	Args: cobra.NoArgs,
	RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
		app := newApp()
		k, err := app.Kubernetes()
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}

		if err := k.Teardown(context.Background()); err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error deleting %s: %w", kubernetes.Name, err)
		}

		ctx := context.Background()
		if err := k.Provision(ctx); err != nil {
			return err
		}

		if err := k.Start(ctx); err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error starting %s: %w", kubernetes.Name, err)
		}

		return nil
	},
}

func init() {
	root.Cmd().AddCommand(kubernetesCmd)
	kubernetesCmd.AddCommand(kubernetesStartCmd)

View on GitHub (pinned to c3a5f9184d)

Solutions

1. Check `colima status` shows running, then retry `colima kubernetes reset` — teardown failures are often transient ssh hiccups
2. If it persists, run `colima kubernetes delete` directly to see the unwrapped teardown error
3. Last resort: `colima stop && colima delete && colima start --kubernetes` (loses cached images, full rebuild)

# precondition: VM must be running before reset
colima status 2>/dev/null | grep -q running || colima start

// teardown failures are often transient (ssh); retry once after a pause
var err error
for attempt := range 2 {
    if attempt > 0 {
        time.Sleep(5 * time.Second)
    }
    if err = resetCmd.Execute(); err == nil || !strings.Contains(err.Error(), "error deleting") {
        break
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: k.Teardown failing because the VM is hung or ssh to the guest times out; k3s uninstall inside the guest errors; a previous reset left half-deleted state; the VM was stopped concurrently by another colima command.

Common situations: Resetting after a failed kubernetes start; running reset while `colima stop` is in progress; low guest resources causing the teardown script to fail; stale lima guest after host sleep.

Related errors

• %s is not enabled
• error starting %s: %w
• runtime cannot be updated, %s is not running
• %s is not running
• cannot restart, VM not previously started

AI-assisted analysis of abiosoft/colima@c3a5f9184d (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3b8d1531f07d5808. Report an issue: GitHub.