lima-vm/lima · critical

%s: %w (result: %s)

Error message

%s: %w (result: %s)

What it means

When HcsWaitForOperationResult itself fails (non-zero HRESULT), hcsWait returns '<what>: <hresultErr> (result: <doc>)'. The result document is the HCS JSON error payload, which contains the structured HCS error code and message — this is the richest diagnostic for create/start/terminate failures. The actual VM-level failure reason is inside that JSON.

Source

Thrown at pkg/driver/hcs/hcs_api_windows.go:95

	return hcsOperation(r0), nil
}

func hcsCloseOperation(op hcsOperation) {
	_, _, _ = syscall.SyscallN(procHcsCloseOperation.Addr(), uintptr(op))
}

// hcsWait drives one async HCS call to completion and returns the result
// document (which carries structured error info on failure).
func hcsWait(op hcsOperation, what string, callErr error) (string, error) {
	if callErr != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("%s: %w", what, callErr)
	}
	var result *uint16
	r0, _, _ := syscall.SyscallN(procHcsWaitForOperationResult.Addr(),
		uintptr(op), uintptr(infiniteTimeout), uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(&result)))
	doc := coString(result)
	if err := hresultErr(r0); err != nil {
		return doc, fmt.Errorf("%s: %w (result: %s)", what, err, doc)
	}
	return doc, nil
}

func hcsCreateComputeSystem(id, configuration string) (hcsSystem, error) {
	op, err := hcsCreateOperation()
	if err != nil {
		return 0, err
	}
	defer hcsCloseOperation(op)

	idP, err := syscall.UTF16PtrFromString(id)
	if err != nil {
		return 0, err
	}
	cfgP, err := syscall.UTF16PtrFromString(configuration)
	if err != nil {
		return 0, err

View on GitHub (pinned to dd909d0973)

Solutions

1. Parse the '(result: ...)' JSON for the HCS ErrorCode/ErrorMessage to find the root cause
2. Ensure the hypervisor is running: bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto, then reboot
3. Validate VM settings (memory/cpu) are within host limits in lima.yaml
4. Close conflicting hypervisors (disable VirtualBox/older VMware when using WHP-based HCS)

Example fix

// before (admin prompt)
PS> bcdedit /enum | findstr hypervisorlaunchtype  # shows Off
// result doc: {"ErrorCode":2151351185,...}
// after
PS> bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto
PS> Restart-Computer

// pre-check: hypervisor must be launched for HCS to start compute systems
// admin PowerShell: (Get-ComputerInfo).HyperVisorPresent -eq $true
if !hypervisorPresent() {
	return errors.New("enable hypervisor: bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto, then reboot")
}

if err := limactl.Start(inst); err != nil {
	if i := strings.Index(err.Error(), "(result: "); i >= 0 {
		doc := err.Error()[i+len("(result: ") : len(err.Error())-1]
		var hcsErr struct{ ErrorMessage string `json:"ErrorMessage"` }
		if json.Unmarshal([]byte(doc), &hcsErr) == nil {
			log.Printf("HCS root cause: %s", hcsErr.ErrorMessage)
		}
	}
	return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: HcsWaitForOperationResult returns an error HRESULT after an async HcsCreateComputeSystem/HcsStartComputeSystem/HcsTerminateComputeSystem call — e.g. guest boot failure, bad configuration document, hypervisor not running, or resource exhaustion.

Common situations: Hyper-V/Virtual Machine Platform enabled but hypervisor not launched (bcdedit hypervisorlaunchtype off); invalid memory/CPU settings rejected by HCS; base image incompatible; WHP (Windows Hypervisor Platform) conflicts with other hypervisors (WSL2/VirtualBox).

Related errors

• unimplemented
• HcsCreateOperation: %w
• %s: %w
• configuration is nil
• --condition=boot is only supported on macOS

AI-assisted analysis of lima-vm/lima@dd909d0973 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/34020fb19c80bede. Report an issue: GitHub.