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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​

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.