minikube: Error getting state for host: exit status 126

Minikube version (use minikube version): minikube version: v0.8.0

Environment:

OS (e.g. from /etc/os-release): OS X El Capitan 10.11.6
VM Driver (e.g. cat ~/.minikube/machines/minikubeVM/config.json | grep DriverName): “DriverName”: “virtualbox”,
Docker version (e.g. docker -v): Docker version 1.12.0, build 8eab29e

(Docker for Mac)

Install tools: OS X binary package

What happened:

(docsamples10) waprin-macbookpro:django_postgres_redis waprin$ minikube start --vm-driver=xhyve E0824 15:32:51.389622 30129 start.go:89] Error starting host: Error getting state for host: exit status 126 Error getting state for host: exit status 126 (docsamples10) waprin-macbookpro:django_postgres_redis waprin$ minikube docker-env E0824 15:23:04.955046 29839 env.go:247] Error setting machine env variable(s): exit status 126

What you expected to happen:

Don’t get errors or get errors that make it clear how to fix.
Make it clearer how to blow away any config that might be breaking things

How to reproduce it (as minimally and precisely as possible):

OS X, Docker for Mac, download minikube OS X binary and do minikube start

Anything else do we need to know:

I think minikube start might have succeeded the first time and then all the commands started giving the 126, but I’m having problems digging up the bash history. Either way now start fails right away.

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 8 years ago
Comments: 26 (17 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

As a referential point for anyone who run into this issue on El Capitan and found this via Google (like I did):

If you partially removed VirtualBox, most likely the files you need to “fully” remove it are /usr/local/bin/VBox* and /usr/local/bin/vbox*

Removing those and then minikube start --vm-driver=xhyve got me up and running.

+87

dutronlabs on Sep 9, 2016

Thanks for a solution it worked for me.

rm -rf /usr/local/bin/{VBox,vbox}* is the necessary step to do.

+10

ghost on Jul 28, 2017

Could we maybe make:

E0626 15:22:55.006606 63390 start.go:133] Error starting host: Error creating host: Error with pre-create check: “Error detecting VBox version: exit status 126”

Also mention something about how you probably tried to remove VirtualBox unsuccesfully and need to do:

rm -rf /usr/local/bin/{VBox,vbox}*

zoidyzoidzoid on Jun 26, 2017

It looks like minikube did not delete gracefully. A minikube delete should wipe the config file, and then a subsequent minikube start --vm-driver=xhyve should work properly.

Sometimes the minikube start command is not clear. We should add a check to see if the driver flag passed in matches the known configuration that would require a restart or deletion.

r2d4 on Aug 24, 2016

Yes, I can confirm that a sloppy VirtualBox uninstall left these files in /usr/local/bin

VBoxAutostart
VBoxBalloonCtrl
VBoxDTrace
VBoxHeadless
VBoxManage
VBoxVRDP
VirtualBox

After removing them, minikube start --vm-driver=xhyve works as expected.

eggie5 on Jul 17, 2017

I met this problem on windows7 and I used virtualbox as vm-driver. solved it by following steps : delete the .minikube folder whitch under “C:\Users\USER_NAME” then minikube start

yuchen16 on Mar 7, 2017

Sorry, vboxmanage. and since this is osx case matters. I think it’s VBoxManage

dlorenc on Aug 24, 2016

Wiping the config files worked for me:

rm -rf ~/.minikube

psanders on May 24, 2019

You’re the second person to run into this xhyve bug, we should try to make the error clearer at least, or change this case to a warning in the driver.

dlorenc on Aug 25, 2016