abiosoft/colima · error

error during image download: %w

Error message

error during image download: %w

What it means

Wrapped error returned by downloadImage when downloader.Download fails to fetch the VM disk image. The request carries the image URL and, when known, a sha512 digest; failure covers network errors, HTTP failures (404/403), and digest verification mismatches.

Source

Thrown at environment/vm/lima/limautil/image.go:165

		}
		files[arch.GoArch()] = file

		diskImageMap[runtime] = files
	}

	return nil
}

// downloadImage downloads the file and returns the location of the downloaded file.
func downloadImage(host environment.HostActions, file limaconfig.File) (string, error) {
	// download image
	request := downloader.Request{URL: file.Location}
	if file.Digest != "" {
		request.SHA = &downloader.SHA{Size: 512, Digest: file.Digest}
	}
	location, err := downloader.Download(host, request)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("error during image download: %w", err)
	}

	return location, nil
}

// qcow2ToRaw uses qemu-img to conver the image from qcow to raw.
// Returns the filename of the raw file and an error (if any).
func qcow2ToRaw(host environment.Host, image diskImageFile) (string, error) {
	if _, err := os.Stat(image.Raw()); err == nil {
		// already exists, return
		return image.Raw(), nil
	}

	err := host.Run("qemu-img", "convert", "-f", "qcow2", "-O", "raw", image.String(), image.Raw())
	if err != nil {
		// remove the incomplete raw file
		_ = host.RunQuiet("rm", "-f", image.Raw())
		return "", err

View on GitHub (pinned to c3a5f9184d)

Solutions

1. Check connectivity to the image URL (curl -I) and fix proxy/DNS/VPN
2. If using an image mirror, verify it actually serves the path that replaced the github.com prefix, or drop the mirror setting
3. Clear the partial download from the downloader cache and retry 'colima start'
4. Retry later if GitHub is having an incident

Example fix

# before: mirror 404 -> error during image download
export COLIMA_IMAGE_MIRROR=https://mirror.example.com
# after: use a mirror that mirrors github release assets, or unset it
unset COLIMA_IMAGE_MIRROR

// cheap pre-flight before the big download
resp, err := http.Head(img.Location)
if err != nil || resp.StatusCode >= 400 {
    return fmt.Errorf("image URL unreachable (status %d): aborting before download", resp.StatusCode)
}

Wrap DownloadImage in bounded retry with backoff; abort retries early if the cause is a digest mismatch (strings.Contains(err.Error(), "sha512") or "digest"), since retries cannot fix corruption — clear the cache instead.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling DownloadImage with no internet, through a breaking proxy, with a mirror that returns 404 (mirrorURL swaps the https://github.com prefix for the mirror), or when the downloaded bytes fail the embedded sha512 check.

Common situations: Corporate proxy/MITM certificate breaking the GitHub asset download; misconfigured image mirror; truncated download on flaky Wi-Fi causing checksum failure; GitHub outage during first 'colima start'.

Related errors

• error getting qcow image: %w
• error provisioning %s: %w
• failed to fetch releases: %w
• failed to decode response: %w
• curl download failed for '%s': %w

AI-assisted analysis of abiosoft/colima@c3a5f9184d (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fd81e94bf13021b6. Report an issue: GitHub.