lima-vm/lima · error

invalid plist: IOPlatformUUID not found in any child of IORe

Error message

invalid plist: IOPlatformUUID not found in any child of IORegistryEntryChildren

What it means

This is the terminal error of parseIOPlatformUUIDFromIOPlatformExpertDevice: the plist was structurally valid and had IORegistryEntryChildren, but no child entry contained a string-valued IOPlatformUUID key. The function therefore could not extract the platform UUID used as the macOS machine ID.

Source

Thrown at pkg/osutil/machineid.go:85

	if p.Value.Dict == nil {
		return "", errors.New("invalid plist: top-level value is not a dict")
	}
	ioRegistryEntryChildren, ok := p.Value.Dict["IORegistryEntryChildren"]
	if !ok || ioRegistryEntryChildren.Array == nil || len(ioRegistryEntryChildren.Array) == 0 {
		return "", errors.New("invalid plist: IORegistryEntryChildren not found or empty")
	}
	for _, child := range ioRegistryEntryChildren.Array {
		if child.Dict == nil {
			continue
		}
		ioPlatformUUID, ok := child.Dict["IOPlatformUUID"]
		if !ok || ioPlatformUUID.String == nil {
			continue
		}
		return *ioPlatformUUID.String, nil
	}

	return "", errors.New("invalid plist: IOPlatformUUID not found in any child of IORegistryEntryChildren")
}

View on GitHub (pinned to dd909d0973)

Solutions

1. Confirm `ioreg -rd1 -c IOPlatformExpertDevice | grep IOPlatformUUID` returns a value on this machine.
2. On virtualized macOS, update the VM platform settings so the SMBIOS/Platform UUID is exposed to the guest.
3. Update lima to pick up parser fixes for newer macOS/ioreg formats.
4. Accept hostname fallback: ensure the hostname is unique per machine to avoid identity collisions.

Example fix

// before: no IOPlatformUUID in ioreg output (VM guest)
// after: verify on host/guest
$ ioreg -rd1 -c IOPlatformExpertDevice | grep IOPlatformUUID
    "IOPlatformUUID" = "XXXX-..."

out, _ := exec.Command("ioreg", "-rd1", "-c", "IOPlatformExpertDevice").Output()
if !bytes.Contains(out, []byte("IOPlatformUUID")) {
    // platform UUID not exposed (e.g. macOS VM); expect error 864
}

func hasIOPlatformUUID(r io.Reader) bool {
    var p plist.Plist
    if err := xml.NewDecoder(r).Decode(&p); err != nil || p.Value.Dict == nil {
        return false
    }
    ch, ok := p.Value.Dict["IORegistryEntryChildren"]
    if !ok || ch.Array == nil {
        return false
    }
    for _, c := range ch.Array {
        if u, ok := c.Dict["IOPlatformUUID"]; ok && u.String != nil {
            return true
        }
    }
    return false
}

id, err := osutil.MachineID(ctx)
if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "IOPlatformUUID") {
    log.Warn("no IOPlatformUUID (macOS VM?); using hostname as machine id")
}

When it happens

Trigger: machineID() on macOS iterates all children of IORegistryEntryChildren and every child either lacks the IOPlatformUUID key or its value is not a string; raised after the loop finishes without a match.

Common situations: Virtualized macOS (VMware/VirtualBox/QEMU) where the platform UUID is not exposed via IOPlatformExpertDevice; newer Macs with changed IORegistry layouts; ioreg run in a context with reduced IOService visibility.

Related errors

• invalid plist: IORegistryEntryChildren not found or empty
• invalid plist: top-level value is not a dict
• failed to unmarshal xml: %w
• unexpected plist format: missing root dict
• failed to create temp file: %w

AI-assisted analysis of lima-vm/lima@dd909d0973 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/472b091393046be5. Report an issue: GitHub.