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Troubleshooting Podman on Windows

You can find here troubleshooting help for issues specific to Windows.

Deleting a corrupted Podman Machine​

Issue​

  1. You are not able to stop your Podman Machine.

    $ podman machine stop

  2. The Logs contain this error:

    Error: Error stopping sysd: exit status 1

Workaround​

  1. To display the active Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) distribution list: in the terminal, run:

    $ wsl --list

  2. The command returns the list of active WSL distributions. Identify your Podman Machine in the list, such as podman-machine-default.

  3. To stop, and uninstall your Podman Machine: in the terminal, replace podman-machine-default by your Podman machine name, and run:

    $ wsl --unregister podman-machine-default

Additional resources​

Podman Desktop cannot find Podman machine​

Issue​

Podman Desktop does not detect existing Podman machines.

Solution​

When running Podman Desktop as admin, you will be able to see Hyper-V Podman machines. When running in non-privileged mode, you should see your WSL Podman machines.

To check that your Podman machine is discoverable, run wsl --list and podman system connection list. Once this is verified, check the machine's status using podman machine ls, and if it is stuck, reset it with podman machine reset.

If the machine still does not show up in Podman Desktop:

  1. Restart Podman Desktop

  2. If the above does not work, restart WSL2 from the command line

    $ taskkill.exe /F /im wslservice.exe

The terminal session attaches to Podman Desktop when launching it from the command line​

Issue​

  1. When you start Podman Desktop from the command line in Windows the terminal session attaches to it.
  2. When you quit the terminal, it kills Podman Desktop.

Workaround​

  • Set the environment variable ELECTRON_NO_ATTACH_CONSOLE to true before launching Podman Desktop.

When the host is behind a VPN, Podman cannot access network resources​

When the host is behind a VPN, Podman might fail to access network resources, and display errors such as Temporary failure in name resolution.

Solution​

See Accessing resources behind a VPN with Podman on Windows.

Older WSL versions might lead to networking issues​

Older versions of WSL might cause networking issues, such as the Get-NetTCPConnection error, indicating that the WSL loopback forwarding facility is not functioning correctly. Recent versions of WSL do not have this issue.

Solution​

  1. Update Windows to either the 21H1, 21H2, or 22H2 version of Windows 10, or to the 21H1 version of Windows 11, or greater.

  2. Update WSL:

    wsl --update

  3. Optionally, delete your Podman machine, and create a new one.

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC version 21H2: Podman Desktop is unable to detect WSL2 machine​

On a Windows 10 LTSC version, running the wsl --install --no-distribution command does not work, and the Podman Desktop setup does not run smoothly.

You must install a specific Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) distribution to make the Podman Desktop setup run smoothly. After setting up Podman Desktop, you can unintsall the WSL distribution.

Solution: Enable Podman Desktop setup to run smoothly​

Windows 11 or later version

  1. Run the wsl --update command to update the WSL kernel.
  2. Run the wsl --install --no-distribution command to not install any WSL distribution.
  3. Restart your machine.

Windows 10 LTSC version

  1. Run the wsl --update command.
  2. Run the wsl --install -d <distro> command to install a specific WSL distribution.
    • Replace distro with any official WSL distribution, such as ubuntu-24.04.
  3. Restart your machine.
  4. (Optional): Run the wsl --unregister <distro> to uninstall the WSL distribution.

Unable to install Compose extension 2.33.x on Windows due to certificate signature failure​

Installing the Compose extension version 2.33.x fails, and you receive an error message: Unable to fetch the available extensions: certificate signature failure.

Workaround​

The reason for the failure could be that the Windows Certificate Store has been improperly loaded with the corporate certificate chain. Usually, all the certificates are placed in one location, namely TrustedRootCA, which results in the failure to import the certificates into the Podman Desktop application.

To get root CA self-signed certificates to work, you can identify where these certificates have been placed in the Windows Certificate Store. Then, you can clean the Store to ensure those certificates are in their proper locations.