hashicorp/vagrant · warning

There was a problem while downloading the metadata for your

Error message

There was a problem while downloading the metadata for your box
to check for updates. This is not an error, since it is usually due
to temporary network problems. This is just a warning. The problem
encountered was:

%{message}

If you want to check for box updates, verify your network connection
is valid and try again.

What it means

During the box-outdated check (vagrant up/status/box outdated), Vagrant downloads the box's metadata to compare versions. When box.has_update? raises Errors::BoxMetadataDownloadError, the middleware does not abort: it warns with vagrant.box_outdated_metadata_download_error including the underlying message and continues with the current box. This entry is that warning, explicitly marked 'not an error' — a degraded check, not a failed operation.

Source

Thrown at lib/vagrant/action/builtin/box_check_outdated.rb:66

            ca_path: env[:ca_path] || machine.config.vm.box_download_ca_path,
            client_cert: env[:client_cert] ||
                           machine.config.vm.box_download_client_cert,
            insecure: !env[:insecure].nil? ?
                        env[:insecure] : machine.config.vm.box_download_insecure,
            disable_ssl_revoke_best_effort: env.fetch(:box_download_disable_ssl_revoke_best_effort,
                                                      machine.config.vm.box_download_disable_ssl_revoke_best_effort),
            box_extra_download_options: env[:box_extra_download_options] || machine.config.vm.box_extra_download_options,
          }

          env[:ui].output(I18n.t(
            "vagrant.box_outdated_checking_with_refresh",
            name: box.name,
            version: box.version))
          update = nil
          begin
            update = box.has_update?(constraints, download_options: download_options)
          rescue Errors::BoxMetadataDownloadError => e
            env[:ui].warn(I18n.t(
              "vagrant.box_outdated_metadata_download_error",
              message: e.extra_data[:message]))
          rescue Errors::BoxMetadataMalformed  => e
            @logger.warn(e.to_s)
            env[:ui].warn(I18n.t("vagrant.box_malformed_continue_on_update"))
          rescue Errors::VagrantError => e
            raise if !env[:box_outdated_ignore_errors]
            env[:ui].detail(I18n.t(
              "vagrant.box_outdated_metadata_error_single",
              message: e.message))
          end
          env[:box_outdated] = update != nil
          local_update = check_outdated_local(env)
          if update && (local_update.nil? || (local_update.version < update[1].version))
            env[:ui].warn(I18n.t(
              "vagrant.box_outdated_single",
              name: update[0].name,
              provider: box.provider,

View on GitHub (pinned to 35f3160f4a)

Solutions

1. Verify connectivity to the box's metadata URL (curl -I it)
2. Retry later if the registry was transiently failing
3. If you own the box, fix and republish the metadata_url
4. Disable automatic checks with config.vm.box_check_update = false in the Vagrantfile

Example fix

# before
# box_check_update defaults true; offline CI warns on every run

# after
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.box_check_update = false
end

# Vagrantfile: skip the check where network is known-absent
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.box_check_update = false
end

begin
  update = box.has_update?(constraints)
rescue Vagrant::Errors::BoxMetadataDownloadError => e
  # matches the middleware's own handling: warn and continue with current box
  warn "outdated check skipped: #{e.extra_data[:message]}"
end

When it happens

Trigger: The box's metadata_url being unreachable while checking for updates: no network, DNS failure, proxy blocking vagrantcloud.com, rate limiting, or a broken metadata_url baked into the box package.

Common situations: Corporate proxies; offline/air-gapped development; transient Vagrant Cloud outages; boxes published with wrong metadata URLs; CI runners without egress.

Related errors

• There was an error while downloading the metadata for this b
• The "metadata.json" file for the box '%{name}' was not found
• The metadata associated with the box '%{name}' appears corru
• The metadata associated with the box '%{name}' appears to be
• The box you attempted to add doesn't match the provider you

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/vagrant@35f3160f4a (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6099cd805018e003. Report an issue: GitHub.