abiosoft/colima · warning

error inspecting containers: %w

Error message

error inspecting containers: %w

What it means

fetchVolumes then runs `<runtime> inspect <id...>` for every id obtained from `ps -q`; failure wraps as 'error inspecting containers'. The classic cause is a race: a container that was running at ps time exits and is removed before inspect runs, making inspect return an error for a now-missing id.

Source

Thrown at daemon/process/inotify/volumes.go:116

		}
	}

	log.Tracef("found containers %+v", containers)

	// fetch volumes
	var resp []struct {
		Mounts []struct {
			Source string `json:"Source"`
		} `json:"Mounts"`
	}
	{
		args := append([]string{}, cmdArgs...)
		args = append(args, "inspect")
		args = append(args, containers...)

		var buf bytes.Buffer
		if err := f.guest.RunWith(nil, &buf, args...); err != nil {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("error inspecting containers: %w", err)
		}
		if err := json.NewDecoder(&buf).Decode(&resp); err != nil {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("error decoding docker response")
		}
	}

	// process and discard redundant volumes
	vols := []string{}
	{
		shouldMount := func(child string) bool {
			// ignore all invalid directories.
			// i.e. directories not within the mounted VM directories
			for _, parent := range f.vmVols {
				if strings.HasPrefix(child, parent) {
					return true
				}
			}
			return false

View on GitHub (pinned to c3a5f9184d)

Solutions

1. wait for the next poll — churn races heal once the workload settles
2. reproduce manually to see the runtime's complaint: `colima ssh -- docker ps -q | head | xargs docker inspect`
3. restart colima if the error floods logs continuously and watching never engages

if err := guest.RunWith(nil, &buf, args...); err != nil {
    // most often a ps/inspect race with exiting containers — drop this cycle,
    // the 5s poll rebuilds the container list from scratch next time
    return nil, fmt.Errorf("error inspecting containers: %w", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: short-lived containers exiting between the ps and inspect calls; very large container counts producing oversized argument lists; runtime-level inspect errors in the guest.

Common situations: CI-style churn workloads with many ephemeral containers; batch jobs spawning and removing containers while inotify watching is enabled.

Related errors

• error fetching docker volumes: %w
• error listing containers: %w
• error inspecting model %q: %w
• error parsing model info: %w
• failed to inspect model %q after pull: %w

AI-assisted analysis of abiosoft/colima@c3a5f9184d (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bfd4489d3a386d43. Report an issue: GitHub.