QEMU on macOS 15.2 on Apple M4: `qemu-system-aarch64: Property 'host-arm-cpu.sme' not found`

[AkihiroSuda]

limactl start --vm-type=qemu fails with {"level":"debug","msg":"qemu[stderr]: qemu-system-aarch64: Property 'host-arm-cpu.sme' not found","time":"2024-12-18T12:34:14+09:00"} in ha.stderr.log.

• Host: macOS 15.2, on MacBook Pro 2024 (M4 Max)
• Lima: v1.0.2
• QEMU: v9.2.0

Similar issues:

• MacOS Mac Mini M4 qemu-system-aarch64: Property 'host-arm-cpu.sme' not found canonical/multipass#3842
• https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues/2665
• https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues/2721

This issue seems specific to Apple M4 (introduced SME) and macOS 15.2

Workaround

limactl edit --set '.cpuType.aarch64="cortex-a57"' INSTANCE

[AkihiroSuda]

Attempting to cherry-pick UTM's patch to Homebrew

• qemu: apply hvf: arm: disable SME which is not properly handled by QEMU Homebrew/homebrew-core#201613

[AkihiroSuda]

This happened again, probably after updating QEMU

• qemu-system-aarch64: Property 'host-arm-cpu.sme' not found (again, in QEMU 9.2.1) #3226