lima-vm/lima · error

exiting, status=%+v (hint: see %#q)

Error message

exiting, status=%+v (hint: see %#q)

What it means

watchHostAgentEvents receives hostagent lifecycle events; when an event has Status.Exiting set, the hostagent reported it is exiting (usually after a fatal provisioning or startup error), and limactl converts the full status into this error, pointing at ha.stderr.log. The %+v of ev.Status includes errors and the last phase reported by the hostagent.

Source

Thrown at pkg/instance/start.go:403

			progress := ev.Status.CloudInitProgress
			if progress.Active && progress.LogLine == "" {
				logrus.Infof("Cloud-init provisioning started...")
			}

			if progress.LogLine != "" {
				logrus.Infof("[cloud-init] %s", progress.LogLine)
			}

			if progress.Completed {
				cloudInitCompleted = true
				logrus.Infof("Cloud-init progress monitoring done.")
			}
		}
		if len(ev.Status.Errors) > 0 {
			logrus.Errorf("%+v", ev.Status.Errors)
		}
		if ev.Status.Exiting {
			err = fmt.Errorf("exiting, status=%+v (hint: see %#q)", ev.Status, haStderrPath)
			return true
		} else if ev.Status.Running {
			receivedRunningEvent = true
			if ev.Status.Degraded {
				logrus.Warnf("DEGRADED. The VM seems running, but file sharing and port forwarding may not work. (hint: see %#q)", haStderrPath)
				err = fmt.Errorf("degraded, status=%+v", ev.Status)
				return true
			}

			if xerr := runAnsibleProvision(ctx, inst); xerr != nil {
				err = xerr
				return true
			}

			if showProgress && !cloudInitCompleted {
				return false
			}

View on GitHub (pinned to dd909d0973)

Solutions

1. Read the ha.stderr.log path embedded in the error for the hostagent's fatal message
2. Fix provisioning errors reported in ev.Status.Errors (printed just above)
3. Validate lima.yaml fields (mounts, networks, provisioning scripts)
4. Recreate the instance with `limactl delete -f` if state is corrupted

Example fix

// before
if err := lima.Start(ctx, inst); err != nil { return err }
// after
if err := lima.Start(ctx, inst); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "exiting, status=") {
        logrus.Errorf("hostagent exited; check %s", haStderrPath)
    }
    return err
}

// parse the status embedded in the error
re := regexp.MustCompile(`exiting, status=(.+?) \(hint`)
if m := re.FindStringSubmatch(err.Error()); m != nil { status := m[1] }

if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "exiting, status=") {
    // read ha.stderr.log referenced in the message and surface its tail to the user
    b, _ := os.ReadFile(haStderrPath)
    logrus.Errorf("hostagent exited: %s", tail(b, 50))
}

When it happens

Trigger: Any `limactl start` where the hostagent emits an event with Exiting=true: failed provisioning scripts, fatal errors in port forwarding setup, guest agent never connecting, or explicit hostagent shutdown request.

Common situations: Broken provisioning in user-data/cloud-init scripts, invalid mount or network config in lima.yaml, guest image failing to boot, or `limactl stop` racing with `limactl start`.

Related errors

• host agent process has exited: %w
• did not receive an event with the `running` status
• expected status %#q, got %#q
• failed to check autostart registration: %w
• hostagent (%#q) did not start up in %v (hint: see %#q)

AI-assisted analysis of lima-vm/lima@dd909d0973 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2b7cf5c2527a2fd2. Report an issue: GitHub.