Unable to start Rancher Desktop on MacBook Pro M3

[AlexeyRaga]

Actual Behavior

Freshly installing Rancher Desktop to a new fresh MacOS on the M3 machine.
It takes time to start up, then fails with "Error Starting Kubernetes"

Recent log file lines as reported:

'time="2024-01-30T22:43:50+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:45:16+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:46:42+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:48:07+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:49:33+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:50:49+11:00" level=fatal msg="did not receive an event with the \\"running\\" status"\n',
  code: 1,
  [Symbol(child-process.command)]: '/Applications/Rancher Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/resources/darwin/lima/bin/limactl.ventura start --tty=false 0'
}

And here is background.log with an error:

2024-01-30T11:40:49.129Z: UnhandledRejectionWarning: Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, watch '/Users/alexey/.kube/config'
    at FSWatcher.<anonymous> (node:internal/fs/watchers:247:19)
    at Object.watch (node:fs:2343:34)
    at /Applications/Rancher Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/dist/app/background.js:41:109390
    at Array.map (<anonymous>)
    at Zs.watchForChanges (/Applications/Rancher Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/dist/app/background.js:41:109378) {
  errno: -2,
  syscall: 'watch',
  code: 'ENOENT',
  path: '/Users/alexey/.kube/config',
  filename: '/Users/alexey/.kube/config'
}
2024-01-30T11:40:49.186Z: mainEvents settings-update: {"version":10,"application":{"adminAccess":false,"debug":false,"extensions":{"allowed":{"enabled":false,"list":[]},"installed":{}},"pathManagementStrategy":"rcfiles","telemetry":{"enabled":true},"updater":{"enabled":true},"autoStart":false,"startInBackground":false,"hideNotificationIcon":false,"window":{"quitOnClose":false}},"containerEngine":{"allowedImages":{"enabled":false,"patterns":[]},"name":"moby"},"virtualMachine":{"memoryInGB":6,"numberCPUs":2,"hostResolver":true},"WSL":{"integrations":{}},"kubernetes":{"version":"1.28.5","port":6443,"enabled":false,"options":{"traefik":false,"flannel":true},"ingress":{"localhostOnly":false}},"portForwarding":{"includeKubernetesServices":false},"images":{"showAll":true,"namespace":"k8s.io"},"containers":{"showAll":true,"namespace":"default"},"diagnostics":{"showMuted":false,"mutedChecks":{}},"experimental":{"virtualMachine":{"type":"qemu","useRosetta":false,"socketVMNet":false,"mount":{"type":"reverse-sshfs","9p":{"securityModel":"none","protocolVersion":"9p2000.L","msizeInKib":128,"cacheMode":"mmap"}},"networkingTunnel":false,"proxy":{"enabled":false,"address":"","password":"","port":3128,"username":"","noproxy":["0.0.0.0/8","10.0.0.0/8","127.0.0.0/8","169.254.0.0/16","172.16.0.0/12","192.168.0.0/16","224.0.0.0/4","240.0.0.0/4"]}}}}
2024-01-30T11:40:49.194Z: UnhandledRejectionWarning: [Error: EACCES: permission denied, open '/Users/alexey/.zshrc'] {
  errno: -13,
  code: 'EACCES',
  syscall: 'open',
  path: '/Users/alexey/.zshrc'
}
2024-01-30T11:50:49.450Z: Kubernetes was unable to start: c [Error]: /Applications/Rancher Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/resources/darwin/lima/bin/limactl.ventura exited with code 1
    at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/Applications/Rancher Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/dist/app/background.js:2:137484)
    at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:513:28)
    at Process.onexit (node:internal/child_process:291:12) {
  command: [
    '/Applications/Rancher Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/resources/darwin/lima/bin/limactl.ventura',
    'start',
    '--tty=false',
    '0'
  ],
  stdout: '',
  stderr: 'time="2024-01-30T22:40:49+11:00" level=info msg="Using the existing instance \\"0\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:40:49+11:00" level=info msg="Starting the instance \\"0\\" with VM driver \\"qemu\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:40:49+11:00" level=info msg="QEMU binary \\"/Applications/Rancher Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/resources/darwin/lima/bin/qemu-system-aarch64\\" seems properly signed with the \\"com.apple.security.hypervisor\\" entitlement"\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:40:49+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] hostagent socket created at /Users/alexey/Library/Application Support/rancher-desktop/lima/0/ha.sock"\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:40:49+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Starting QEMU (hint: to watch the boot progress, see \\"/Users/alexey/Library/Application Support/rancher-desktop/lima/0/serial*.log\\")"\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:40:49+11:00" level=info msg="SSH Local Port: 49771"\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:40:49+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:40:59+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:42:25+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:43:50+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:45:16+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:46:42+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:48:07+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:49:33+11:00" level=info msg="[hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: \\"ssh\\""\n' +
    'time="2024-01-30T22:50:49+11:00" level=fatal msg="did not receive an event with the \\"running\\" status"\n',
  code: 1,
  [Symbol(child-process.command)]: '/Applications/Rancher Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/resources/darwin/lima/bin/limactl.ventura start --tty=false 0'
}

Steps to Reproduce

Install Rancher Desktop to a fresh OS
Start Rancher Desktop

Result

Error appears as per attached screenshot and logs

Expected Behavior

Rancher Desktop starts up and docker ps works

Additional Information

No response

Rancher Desktop Version

1.12.2 - darwin (aarch64)

Rancher Desktop K8s Version

1.28.5 (disabled)

Which container engine are you using?

moby (docker cli)

What operating system are you using?

macOS

Operating System / Build Version

14.2 (23C64)

What CPU architecture are you using?

arm64 (Apple Silicon)

Linux only: what package format did you use to install Rancher Desktop?

None

Windows User Only

No response

[AlexeyRaga]

As a workaround I configured Rancher Desktop to use an experimental VZ instead of QEMU and was able to start it this way.

[r4fterman]

Hi,
I ran into the same issue and can confirm that switching from QEMU to VZ is a workaround also for me. Rancher Desktop is working fine now.

Regards, R4FT3R

[jandubois]

This is documented in the 1.12 release notes that M3 chips don't work with the current QEMU release (https://github.com/rancher-sandbox/rancher-desktop/releases/tag/v1.12.2):

Known Issues

Apple M3 CPUs

Apple M3 CPUs are not supported (yet) by QEMU. Please use VZ emulation instead (#5943).