Macbook Shutdown failing when podman machine was running.

[Iomin161]

Hey there!
I opened an issue yesterday on podman-desktop, since i could not find any experience reports myself.
I want to close it and move this to the discussions over here.
Since the issue does not seem to be that common and i mostly use the cli version of podman anyway, it is probably a good way to figure this out.
I would appreciate help and or experience reports.

Following, the content of that issue:

Iomin161
opened yesterday · edited by Iomin161
Shutdown delay/fail on macOS when Podman machine was running

Does anyone else experience this?

Description: When running Podman on macOS (Apple Silicon), the system experiences significant shutdown delays after a Podman machine has been active. The issue persists even after stopping the machine and killing virtualization processes manually.

Key observations:

System logs show VFS (Virtual File System) operations remain pending for 120+ seconds during shutdown
Watchdog timeout occurs after ~135 seconds with "vfs shutdown in progress"
The Virtualization.VirtualMachine XPC service continues running despite cleanup attempts
Issue occurs in both rootless and rootful configurations
Problem persists even after proper podman machine stop and process termination
Logs show the virtualization framework maintains active file system connections that aren't properly released during shutdown, leading to watchdog timeouts and delayed or failed shutdowns(machine booting back up again).

This happened to me with podman-desktop version 1.16.0. I then uninstalled podman and removed any remaining app files.
I currently run podman cli version 5.3.2 installed with homebrew - but it behaves exactly the same like the desktop-version, during shutdown.

Operating system

macOS Sequoia 15.3, Apple silicon

Installation Method

Brew (macOS)

Version

1.16.0

Steps to reproduce

Start Podman machine
Use Podman normally
Stop Podman machine
Attempt system shutdown
Observe significant delay or system restart instead of clean shutdown

Relevant log output

panic(cpu 1 caller 0xfffffe001cb9c7f0): watchdog timeout: no checkins from watchdogd in 132 seconds (72 totalcheckins since monitoring last enabled), shutdown in progress, vfs shutdown in progress, last vfs completion time: 125 seconds ago
Additional context

Would appreciate guidance on proper cleanup of virtualization resources during system shutdown.
Activity
Iomin161
added
kind/bug 🐞
Something isn't working
yesterday
podman-desktop-bot
added
status/need-triage
yesterday
podman-desktop-bot
added this to Podman Desktop Planning OLDyesterday
podman-desktop-bot
moved this to 📋 Backlog in Podman Desktop Planning OLDyesterday
benoitf
added
qe/testing-required
Use when QE testing is needed on PR
7 hours ago
benoitf
benoitf commented 7 hours ago
benoitf
7 hours ago
Collaborator
hello @Iomin161 so you're experiencing a delay in the shutdown of Podman Desktop but you're saying that the podman machine is stopped.

Could you share the screenshot of the resources screen with podman before you're trying to do the system shutdown

And what is the type of the Podman Machine: applehv or libkrun ?

Image

@podman-desktop/qe-reviewers do you experience this issue ?
cbr7
cbr7 commented 7 hours ago
cbr7
7 hours ago · edited by cbr7
Contributor
@Iomin161 I'm confused when you say "attempt system shutdown" in step 4, do you mean closing Podman Desktop app or do you mean you are trying to shutdown macOS because @benoitf seems to think it's the former, but it's also possible it might be the latter.

Generally I've not seen either issue on my M2 Pro macbook.

@Iomin161 May I suggest you try to reproduce this behavior without opening Podman Desktop app at all to see if it still happens? You can start/stop/operated the podman machine from Terminal, this way we can see if the issue is related to podman machine or Podman Desktop app.
Iomin161
Iomin161 commented 7 hours ago
Iomin161
7 hours ago
Author
Hey, thanks for the responses!
The podman machine is a applehv.
At the moment i use the cli version of podman.
The problem occurs after the podman machine is stopped and i want to shutdown my macbook pro m1. Like i described in my initial post, i stopped podman with "podman machine stop machine-name". I also tried killing remaining podman and virtualization processes with "sudo pkill". But it makes no difference, virtualization processes seem to linger around.
If i did not use/start podman, shutdown behaves normally.
Could this be a m1 specific issue?
I can send a screenshot later today. If you need any further information, i am happy to help.
cbr7
cbr7 commented 6 hours ago
cbr7
6 hours ago
Contributor
@Iomin161 from what you've said I think you might be reporting this issue in the wrong repo to be completely honest, this repo is for Podman Desktop app specifically, your problem seems to be related to Podman, which can be found here
Iomin161
Iomin161 commented 6 hours ago
Iomin161
6 hours ago
Author
I experienced this on Podman-Desktop as well as cli, just fyi. But you are right, i will check the podman repo for issues and open it there again. Thanks a lot, anyway! :)