[Bug]: "container system start" hangs when app root is placed on an external disk

[GarthSnyder]

I have done the following

• I have searched the existing issues
• If possible, I've reproduced the issue using the 'main' branch of this project

Steps to reproduce

The container system start command hangs indefinitely for me whenever the app root is on an external disk. It prints "Verifying apiserver is running..." but never progresses beyond that.

Things I've tried that all fail in this same way:

• Starting the 0.4.1 release version installed via package with container system start --app-root path-to-existing-dir, where path-to-existing-dir is on an external drive.
• Symbolic linking ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.container to path-to-existing dir.
• Cloning the current repo to an external disk and running make all test integration as suggested in the BUILDING document.
• Cloning the current repo to a second external disk and running make all test integration.

Things that work fine:

• Using container normally with no special configuration.
• Cloning to my home directory (on the root disk) and running make all test integration.

I would imagine it fails similarly on any non-root disk, but in true Apple style, I have only the one internal disk to test with. When failing during make, the process hangs at:

Running the integration tests...
Warning! Running debug build. Performance may be degraded.
Verifying apiserver is running...

Note that the make test phase always seems to work fine--even on an external disk--and it runs without errors, even though testing also appears to depend on the apiserver.

Control-C'ing the container start command after it hangs leaves the container system in a wedged and unrecoverable state. Containers can't be used until after a reboot.

Current behavior

As described above.

Expected behavior

I just want containers stored on an external disk that I specify. In other ways, I don't think there's anything unusual about what I'm trying to do.

Environment

- OS: Tahoe 26.0 release version
- Xcode: 26.0, tool chain 6.2
- Container: Doesn't get far enough to run containers

Relevant log output

See above.

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[jglogan]

Thanks for the issue...we'll see if we can reproduce this!

[jglogan]

@GarthSnyder what sort of external storage are you using, and what kind of volume is on it?

[GarthSnyder]

Ah, I should have specified. As mentioned above, I've reproduced this behavior with --app-root set to two different devices, both external.

The "really wish it worked on" drive is a 4TB Western Digital SN850X SSD in a One World Computing 1M2 enclosure connected by a Thunderbolt 4 cable and (near as I can tell) using the Thunderbolt 4 protocol. The drive is one large APFS container that includes multiple volumes. This setup has been rock solid, although it's only six months old or so.

The other drive is a Micron/Crucial MX500 1TB SATA SSD in a Wavlink WL-ST334U dual 3.5" SATA cradle. The cradle is junk, but when it's not spontaneously disconnecting it generally works fine. This drive is also APFS, but with a single APFS volume. The connection is some variant of USB3 SuperSpeed.

I ran both the APFS volumes through Disk Utility First Aid, and they both check out OK.

[outcoldman]

Playing with the app-root as well, for me it does not hang but fails to start (similar to how other people have issues with home directory being on external drive).

I have NVMe RAID0 (APFS (Encrypted)). Where I was able to run Docker for Mac, and Parallels. But container fails to start there

container system start  --app-root /Volumes/DATA/com.apple.container
Verifying apiserver is running...
Error: interrupted: "internalError: "failed to get a response from apiserver: interrupted: "XPC connection error: Connection invalid""
Ensure container system service has been started with `container system start`."

I see that it creates /Volumes/DATA/com.apple.container/apiserver/apiserver.plist file but that is it. Nothing else.