lima-vm/lima · error

vz: CanRequestStop is not supported

Error message

vz: CanRequestStop is not supported

What it means

After the 30-second stop wait loop, the VZ driver falls through to this terminal error: it could not confirm the VM stopped and the VZ machine does not expose CanRequestStop support, so the driver has no remaining mechanism to stop the VM. Reaching this line means the normal stop/await paths both failed.

Source

Thrown at pkg/driver/vz/vz_driver_darwin.go:538

		// Most Linux machines shutdown within 5 seconds, but macOS machines can take longer.
		timeout := time.After(30 * time.Second)
		ticker := time.NewTicker(500 * time.Millisecond)
		for {
			select {
			case <-timeout:
				return errors.New("vz timeout while waiting for stop status")
			case <-ticker.C:
				l.machine.mu.Lock()
				stopped := l.machine.stopped
				l.machine.mu.Unlock()
				if stopped {
					return nil
				}
			}
		}
	}

	return errors.New("vz: CanRequestStop is not supported")
}

func (l *LimaVzDriver) GuestAgentConn(_ context.Context) (net.Conn, string, error) {
	for _, socket := range l.machine.SocketDevices() {
		connect, err := socket.Connect(uint32(l.vSockPort))
		return connect, "vsock", err
	}

	return nil, "", errors.New("unable to connect to guest agent via vsock port 2222")
}

func (l *LimaVzDriver) Info(_ context.Context) driver.Info {
	var info driver.Info

	info.Name = "vz"
	info.VsockPort = l.vSockPort
	info.VirtioPort = l.virtioPort
	if l.Instance != nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to dd909d0973)

Solutions

1. Force-stop: `limactl stop --force <instance>` which bypasses the graceful path
2. Verify with `limactl list` whether the instance still reports Running; kill leftover VM processes if orphaned
3. Restart the host's Virtualization.framework usage by quitting any VM-consuming processes, then retry stop
4. Upgrade macOS/Lima — CanRequestStop support depends on Virtualization.framework capabilities
5. If reproducible, file an issue; reaching this line usually indicates the machine object was not properly initialized

Example fix

// before
err := driver.Stop(ctx) // "vz: CanRequestStop is not supported"
// after
if err := driver.Stop(ctx); err != nil {
    // hard kill path
    driver.Stop(ctx /* force */)
}

// detect state before stop
st, _ := limactlListState(inst)
if st != "Running" { return nil } // nothing to stop

if err := driver.Stop(ctx); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "CanRequestStop") {
        return forceStop(ctx) // hard-kill fallback
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Stop() is called and neither the graceful shutdown check nor the stopped-flag polling succeeded, and the underlying VZ virtual machine object does not implement/support the CanRequestStop path (or the machine is in a state where none of the stop branches returned).

Common situations: Guest never actually powered off after `shutdown -h now`; VZ machine in a weird state after a failed start; older macOS/VZ where CanRequestStop is unavailable; a bug where the machine object's stop support was never wired up.

Related errors

• failed to run %v: %w (output=%s)
• vz timeout while waiting for stop status
• failed to get macOS product version: %w
• failed to create a new rosetta directory share caching optio
• vz driver state stopped

AI-assisted analysis of lima-vm/lima@dd909d0973 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1a6307e336ab8441. Report an issue: GitHub.