abiosoft/colima · error

error getting disk image details: %w

Error message

error getting disk image details: %w

What it means

After stat-ing a user-supplied disk image, Colima calls limautil.Image(arch, runtime) to obtain the canonical image metadata (location and SHA-512 digest) for the VM architecture and runtime. This error means that metadata lookup failed, so Colima cannot determine which digest the supplied image must match. It is independent of the file itself; it is about Colima's embedded image catalog for the requested arch/runtime combination.

Source

Thrown at environment/vm/lima/disk.go:156

		l.limaConf.Provision = append(l.limaConf.Provision, limaconfig.Provision{
			Mode:   "dependency",
			Script: script,
		})
	}
}

func (l *limaVM) downloadDiskImage(ctx context.Context, conf config.Config) error {
	log := l.Logger(ctx)

	// use a user specified disk image
	if conf.DiskImage != "" {
		if _, err := os.Stat(conf.DiskImage); err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("invalid disk image: %w", err)
		}

		image, err := limautil.Image(l.limaConf.Arch, conf.Runtime)
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error getting disk image details: %w", err)
		}

		sha := downloader.SHA{Size: 512, Digest: image.Digest}
		if err := sha.ValidateFile(l.host, conf.DiskImage); err != nil {
			if conf.ForceDiskImage != nil && *conf.ForceDiskImage {
				log.Warnln("unable to validate disk image, but continuing as requested...")
				image.Digest = "" // clear so lima does not re-validate
			} else {
				return fmt.Errorf("disk image must be downloaded from '%s', hash failure: %w", image.Location, err)
			}
		}

		image.Location = conf.DiskImage
		l.limaConf.Images = []limaconfig.File{image}
		return nil
	}

	// use a previously cached image

View on GitHub (pinned to c3a5f9184d)

Solutions

1. Confirm the arch/runtime pair is supported: run `colima start` without a custom disk image and let Colima resolve the default image; if that also fails, the pair is unsupported.
2. Use the default image resolution (omit the disk-image flag) or pick a runtime with a published image (docker/containerd).
3. Upgrade Colima to a release that ships image metadata for your architecture.
4. If you maintain a fork, add the missing arch/runtime entry to limautil's image catalog.

Go: if err := vm.DownloadDiskImage(ctx, conf); err != nil { if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "error getting disk image details") { /* unsupported arch/runtime pair; switch runtime or omit custom image */ } return err }

When it happens

Trigger: Requesting a disk image for an unsupported architecture/runtime pair (e.g. an arch with no published image for the chosen runtime), or running a Colima build whose embedded image metadata is missing/corrupted for that combination. The error surfaces only when conf.DiskImage is set, since the call precedes digest validation of the user file.

Common situations: Running on unusual host architectures (e.g. s390x/ppc64le builds) where no artifact exists; mixing runtime names not present in the catalog; development forks that add runtimes without image entries.

Related errors

• error retrieving current runtime: empty value
• nerdctl only supports %s runtime
• runtime disk provisioned for %s runtime. Delete container da
• invalid disk image: %w
• disk image must be downloaded from '%s', hash failure: %w

AI-assisted analysis of abiosoft/colima@c3a5f9184d (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6213ccfec46618a8. Report an issue: GitHub.