abiosoft/colima · error

'%s' overlaps '%s'

Error message

'%s' overlaps '%s'

What it means

Thrown while generating the Lima VM config at start: checkOverlappingMounts rejects any two mounts whose effective guest paths nest (one is a string prefix of the other). Lima itself cannot handle overlapping mounts (lima-vm/lima#302), so colima refuses to boot the VM rather than produce a broken 9p/virtiofs setup. The compared path is selectPath(m): MountPoint when set, otherwise Location, after util.CleanPath.

Source

Thrown at environment/vm/lima/yaml.go:444

		return util.CleanPath(m.MountPoint)
	}

	return util.CleanPath(m.Location)
}

func checkOverlappingMounts(mounts []config.Mount) error {
	for i := 0; i < len(mounts)-1; i++ {
		a, err := selectPath(mounts[i])
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}
		for j := i + 1; j < len(mounts); j++ {
			b, err := selectPath(mounts[j])
			if err != nil {
				return err
			}
			if strings.HasPrefix(a, b) || strings.HasPrefix(b, a) {
				return fmt.Errorf("'%s' overlaps '%s'", a, b)
			}
		}
	}
	return nil
}

// disableHas checks if the provided feature is indeed found in the disable configuration slice.
func ingressDisabled(disableFlags []string) bool {
	disabled := func(s string) bool { return s == "traefik" || s == "ingress" }
	for i, f := range disableFlags {
		if f == "--disable" {
			if len(disableFlags)-1 <= i {
				return false
			}
			if disabled(disableFlags[i+1]) {
				return true
			}
			continue

View on GitHub (pinned to c3a5f9184d)

Solutions

1. Drop the narrower mount (e.g. remove '~/dev' and keep '~'), or drop '~' and mount only the subdirectory
2. If both are needed, set the inner mount's MountPoint outside the outer mount's path so selectPath() results no longer nest
3. Inspect the saved profile config (~/.colima/_lima/<profile>/*.yaml, 'colima list') for stale overlapping mounts and edit settings.yaml or recreate the profile with a non-overlapping set
4. Apply changes with colima stop && colima start (or colima start --mount ... on a fresh profile)

Example fix

# before (overlaps: ~ contains ~/dev)
colima start --mount ~ --mount ~/dev:w

# after (single wide mount)
colima start --mount ~:w

// Run before colima start / writing mount config.
func mountsOverlap(a, b string) bool {
    ac, _ := filepath.Abs(filepath.Clean(expandTilde(a)))
    bc, _ := filepath.Abs(filepath.Clean(expandTilde(b)))
    if ac == "/" || bc == "/" { return true } // root contains everything
    return strings.HasPrefix(ac+"/", bc+"/") || strings.HasPrefix(bc+"/", ac+"/")
}

func validateMounts(mounts []string) error {
    for i := 0; i < len(mounts)-1; i++ {
        for j := i + 1; j < len(mounts); j++ {
            locI := strings.Split(mounts[i], ":")[0]
            locJ := strings.Split(mounts[j], ":")[0]
            if mountsOverlap(locI, locJ) {
                return fmt.Errorf("mount %q overlaps %q", locI, locJ)
            }
        }
    }
    return nil
}

if err := checkOverlappingMounts(conf.Mounts); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("mounts invalid: %w — remove nested mounts or relocate one MountPoint", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: colima start with mounts like --mount ~ and --mount ~/dev (or /Users/me plus /Users/me/projects); a mount whose MountPoint lands inside another mount's Location; paths that look distinct (trailing slash, relative, ~ vs /Users/x) but CleanPath to a nested prefix.

Common situations: Keeping the default '~' mount while adding a project-specific mount; profiles created by older colima versions whose persisted mounts are now validated on upgrade; reusing CI scripts that stack --mount flags.

Related errors

• dependency check failed for VM: %w
• error starting vm: %w
• error stopping vm: %w
• error during teardown of vm: %w
• error stopping :%w

AI-assisted analysis of abiosoft/colima@c3a5f9184d (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/0cdd9a2aadbf718c. Report an issue: GitHub.