launch failed: Remote "" is unknown or unreachable.

[LordKubaya]

Describe the bug Describe what your problem is.

To Reproduce How, and what happened?

1. multipass ...

Expected behavior What did you expect to happen?

Logs Please provide logs from the daemon, see accessing logs on where to find them on your platform.

Additional info

• OS: [e.g. macOS 10.15]
  • multipass version
  • multipass info --all

Additional context Add any other context about the problem here.

[Saviq]

Hi @LordKubaya would you be able to provide the daemon logs as requested? /Library/Logs/Multipass/multipassd.log would be the most interesting.

[ztnel]

Same issue for me on macOS Catalina 10.15.7 here are my multipass details:

$ multipass --version
multipass  1.4.0+mac
multipassd 1.4.0+mac

and daemon logs:

[2020-11-25T22:51:55.605] [warning] [Qt] QNetworkDiskCache::prepare() unable to open temporary file
[2020-11-26T00:48:48.964] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:48:48.966] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:49:39.480] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:49:39.483] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:49:51.839] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:49:51.840] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:49:55.753] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:49:55.753] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:51:06.100] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:51:06.103] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:51:29.119] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:51:29.123] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:51:31.264] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:51:31.266] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:52:42.127] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T00:52:42.131] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T01:57:58.833] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T01:57:58.834] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T01:58:09.057] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T01:58:09.058] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T03:29:32.104] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T03:29:32.113] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T16:29:22.418] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T16:29:22.420] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T18:20:53.608] [info] [update] Failed to fetch update info: failed to download from 'https://multipass.run/static/latest-release.json': Host multipass.run not found
[2020-11-26T18:20:54.347] [debug] [image vault] Checking for images to update…
[2020-11-26T18:20:54.368] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T18:20:54.372] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-26T18:20:54.373] [error] [daemon] Error updating images: Remote "" is unknown or unreachable.
[2020-11-27T12:07:41.067] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-27T12:07:41.071] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-27T12:11:14.161] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[2020-11-27T12:11:14.163] [warning] [VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/xenial/release/ubuntu-16.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64-disk1.img': Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found

EDIT

New version of multipass is available (v1.4.0 -> v1.50). brew upgrade multipass fixed the issue for me.

[adeg]

I had the same issue with the same messages in the logs, using the latest (at the time of writing) version 1.5.0+mac. Turned out this was an Internet access issue. I am using LuLu as a personal firewall. Usually, LuLu asks if the Internet should be allowed to a new application, but it seems that LuLu was not able to detect multipassd attempting to connect thus silently denying access. Adding an allow rule for multipassd solved the problem.

I would recommend adding some functionality to detect connectivity issues and report them in a more meaningful way. launch failed: Remote "" is unknown or unreachable. is somewhat confusing...

Actually, when I think about this — the bug seems to be that the hostname multipassd is attempting to connect is not included in the error message. Had I seen a hostname there, I would have been easier for me to guess that the issue is with connectivity.

[denis-evteev]

I also had exactly the same issue with the same log messages. I occasionally use WireGuard VPN connections, but at the time I experienced the issue WireGuard was deactivated and I had no issues with connecting to the mentioned hosts directly via terminal/browser.

Killing the multipassd process resolved the issue for me.

The daemon's re-launch was most likely the reason why upgrading to the latest version also did the trick for @cSDes1gn. However, the issue seems to still be present in the latest version of multipass, which I'm using (1.5.0+mac).

[Saviq]

This is out of Multipass hands, then. Please see resources below for documentation on the topic:

https://multipass.run/docs/troubleshooting-networking-on-macos https://multipass.run/docs/troubleshooting-networking-on-windows

[beliaev-maksim]

use sudo snap restart multipass.multipassd

[anouar1991]

On linux here's what I tried:

sudo systemctl start snap.multipass.multipassd.service

I also closed any other virtual machine managers such as virtualbox

and it worked

[holta]

FYI this issue remains ongoing-if-intermittent in 2023 — even with a clean reboot of Ubuntu 22.04.3 and the very latest version of Multipass (edge channel) — every attempt at multipass launch failed with the same error message :

# multipass launch
launch failed: Remote "" is unknown or unreachable.

# multipass version
multipass   1.13.0-dev.1030+g87223a85
multipassd  1.13.0-dev.1030+g87223a85

# multipass get local.driver
lxd

# snap list multipass
Name       Version                    Rev    Tracking     Publisher   Notes
multipass  1.13.0-dev.1030+g87223a85  10966  latest/edge  canonical✓  -

# uname -a
Linux 126-u2204-desk 6.2.0-36-generic #37~22.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon Oct  9 15:34:04 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

# cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS \n \l

# systemctl status snap.multipass.multipassd.service
● snap.multipass.multipassd.service - Service for snap application multipass.multipassd
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/snap.multipass.multipassd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2023-11-14 15:37:04 EST; 10min ago
   Main PID: 785 (multipassd)
      Tasks: 18 (limit: 28543)
     Memory: 190.7M
        CPU: 3.747s
     CGroup: /system.slice/snap.multipass.multipassd.service
             └─785 /snap/multipass/10966/bin/multipassd --verbosity debug --logger platform

Nov 14 15:39:47 126-u2204-desk multipassd[785]: Waiting for SSH to be up
Nov 14 15:40:28 126-u2204-desk multipassd[785]: Executing 'ip -brief -family inet address show scope global'
Nov 14 15:40:28 126-u2204-desk multipassd[785]: Executing 'ip -brief -family inet address show scope global'
Nov 14 15:43:11 126-u2204-desk multipassd[785]: Loading "anbox-cloud-appliance" v1
Nov 14 15:43:11 126-u2204-desk multipassd[785]: Loading "charm-dev" v1
Nov 14 15:43:11 126-u2204-desk multipassd[785]: Loading "docker" v1
Nov 14 15:43:11 126-u2204-desk multipassd[785]: Loading "jellyfin" v1
Nov 14 15:43:11 126-u2204-desk multipassd[785]: Loading "minikube" v1
Nov 14 15:43:11 126-u2204-desk multipassd[785]: Loading "ros-noetic" v1
Nov 14 15:43:12 126-u2204-desk multipassd[785]: Loading "ros2-humble" v1

On the bright side, a service restart similar to the aforementioned workaround did in fact work:

sudo systemctl restart snap.multipass.multipassd.service

Suggestion: Multipass should clean up its error message telling users/operators more concretely about the above corrective action. And possibly work towards solving the root cause problem in future if possible too!

[fernandokbs]

Any updates on Mac ?

[zchem]

I'm facing this exact issue even after a fresh reboot/cod start.

$ multipass list
Name                    State             IPv4             Image
phpdev                  Running           10.30.26.247     Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

$ multipass launch
launch failed: Remote "" is unknown or unreachable.

$ multipass version
multipass   1.13.1
multipassd  1.13.1

$ multipass info 
Name:           phpdev
State:          Running
Snapshots:      0
IPv4:           10.30.26.247
Release:        Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
Image hash:     304983616fcb (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS)
CPU(s):         1
Load:           0.00 0.00 0.00
Disk usage:     1.7GiB out of 4.8GiB
Memory usage:   170.9MiB out of 951.9MiB
Mounts:         --

$ multipass get local.driver
qemu

$ snap list multipass
Name       Version  Rev    Tracking       Publisher   Notes
multipass  1.13.1   12146  latest/stable  canonical✓  -

$ uname -a
Linux cmp 6.8.0-76060800daily20240311-generic #202403110203~1711393930~22.04~331756a SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon M x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Restarting the multipassd service fixes the issue.

[zchem]

Attaching logs of $ journalctl --unit 'snap.multipass*' logs.txt

[ricab]

Hi @zchem, looking at your logs Multipass was indeed entirely unable to resolve outside hosts for a while, but there is no clue as to why. Did you change anything with respect to networking before this happened? Perhaps connect to a VPN? Turned on a firewall? Changed DNS settings? Or did you maybe switch from ethernet to wifi or something of the sort?

[DanielPedroElias]

usar sudo snap restart multipass.multipassd

Thank you friend, you are a friend S2

[zchem]

Hi @zchem, looking at your logs Multipass was indeed entirely unable to resolve outside hosts for a while, but there is no clue as to why. Did you change anything with respect to networking before this happened? Perhaps connect to a VPN? Turned on a firewall? Changed DNS settings? Or did you maybe switch from ethernet to wifi or something of the sort?

Nope, didn't change anything related to networking. No VPN. Didn't mess with firewall settings, default ufw is active. No change in DNS (I'm using 1.1.1.1/1.0.0.1). Nope no change in network interface, always using WiFi.

Funny enough, I'm getting this exact error in Windows as well. Note that I've changed my WiFi device to use Private network as well. In Windows, the issue seems to be intermittent. I got launch failed: Remote "" is unknown or unreachable. error and maybe after 6 - 7 minutes, I could launch new instances again. Didn't have to restart multipass

When it failed in Windows, I could see following errors from Event Viewer,

[async task] fetch manifest periodically
[image vault] Checking for images to update…
[daemon] Error updating images: Remote "" is unknown or unreachable.
[url downloader] Cannot retrieve headers for https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/20/stable/current/ubuntu-core-20-amd64.img.xz: Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[url downloader] Error getting https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/streams/v1/index.json: Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found - trying cache.
[url downloader] Error getting https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/buildd/daily/streams/v1/index.json: Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found - trying cache.
[url downloader] Cannot retrieve headers for https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/18/stable/current/ubuntu-core-18-amd64.img.xz: Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[url downloader] Cannot retrieve headers for https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/22/stable/current/ubuntu-core-22-amd64.img.xz: Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[url downloader] Cannot retrieve headers for https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz: Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[VMImageHost] Could not update manifest: failed to download from 'https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/16/stable/current/ubuntu-core-16-amd64.img.xz': Host cdimage.ubuntu.com not found
[url downloader] Error getting https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/buildd/daily/streams/v1/com.ubuntu.cloud:daily:download.json: Host cloud-images.ubuntu.com not found - trying cache.

When this happened I tried pinging several sites (not ubuntu sites above) and DNS resolved without a problem. Then it started working after couple of minutes and I realized I should look at the logs.

So it looks like a DNS issue. However, just to confirm, is there an uptime page for cdimage.ubuntu.com and cloud-images.ubuntu.com? I found this one https://github.com/canonical/upptime but it looks like only for the web and design team sites.

[ricab]

Hi @zchem, there is #3464 to track this problem now. Feel free to add your input there!

[mojothemonkey2]

Also hit this err. Windows, multipass 1.13.1. For me the fix was to restart multipassd - ie, restart Multipass Service. Started working immediately after this.

[jcrben]

Same fix for me as @mojothemonkey2 - running Windows 11

In an admin powershell console running Windows 11, I executed this command: restart-service Multipass - this was my first reboot the install, altho I have previously installed / uninstalled. Then multipass launch and multipass start worked.

Note also that my first install of multipass (or second, or third...) failed to install the service - the powershell get-service which lists services did not show the multipass service. Uninstall and reinstalling fixed that. It may have to do with my initial attempt to install multipass via scoop and then via winget, both of which failed before before installing via the downloaded installer.

[mvase]

On OSX (11.4) I went to "Activities Monitor", searched 'multipass', and then force quit process "multipassd".

[DenisBalan]

on windows pwsh powershell Get-Service multipass | Restart-Service -Force or cmd

sc stop multipass
sc start multipass

[jjaone]

Also hit this err. Windows, multipass 1.13.1. For me the fix was to restart multipassd - ie, restart Multipass Service. Started working immediately after this.

How do you restart multipass service in Windows?