"The file couldn't be opened" when attempting to change VM settings

[emberdex]

Describe the issue

I noticed a few issues which might all be related:

• When creating new VMs, I get the "file couldn't be opened" error message, and the newly-created VM doesn't show up in the list until the app is restarted.
• When changing settings of any VM, the "file couldn't be opened" message appears when I click Save, and the settings do not take effect.
• Clicking the Install Windows Guest Tools menu option on a running VM does nothing.

I have tried granting UTM full disk access in macOS to see if this resolves the issue, to no avail.

Configuration

• UTM Version: 4.5.4
• macOS Version: macOS Sequoia Developer Beta 8 (build 24A5331b)
• Mac Chip (Intel, M1, ...): M1 (8-core GPU) - 8GB RAM

Crash log

N/A (app isn't crashing)

Debug log

N/A (I can't enable it due to the aforementioned issue)

Upload VM

N/A (applies to all VMs)

[naveenrajm7]

Hello
Can you consistently reproduce the "The file couldn't be opened" issue? if so, can you please share the steps?

I had a slightly similar issue #6398 , which was fixed in the 4.5.4 release.
(Also please check if you are using Version 4.5.4 (100) )

[emberdex]

Can you consistently reproduce the "The file couldn't be opened" issue? if so, can you please share the steps?

I can consistently reproduce it:

• Freshly install UTM (I did it both via Homebrew Cask using brew install --cask utm, and by manually dragging the .app file into /Applications, neither of which seemed to make a difference)
• Try to create a virtual machine
• Note that the error message appears when saving the VM, and does not appear in the list until UTM is restarted
• Note that when trying to change the settings of the newly-created VM, whether it's running or not (e.g. trying to enable debug logging or mount an ISO to the virtual disc drive), the error appears

I had a slightly similar issue #6398, which was fixed in the 4.5.4 release.

I did see this issue, however I'm still having the problem. I didn't want to comment on a closed issue just in case it got missed by UTM maintainers.

I should note that this is the first time I've installed UTM on this particular Mac, so there should be no leftover support files from previous versions.

(Also please check if you are using Version 4.5.4 (100) )

I am indeed.

[Tangtangchannel]

I encountered the same issue. I’m using macOS Sequoia (24A5331b). Maybe UTM should be optimized and adapted for macOS Sequoia

[Tangtangchannel]

I encountered the same issue. I’m using macOS Sequoia (24A5331b). Maybe UTM should be optimized and adapted for macOS Sequoia

I hardly encountered any similar issues with UTM before updating Sequoia (upgrading from an older Beta version to a newer Beta version), but I started experiencing this problem after upgrading to a higher Sequoia Beta version

Sorry, I may have said a lot of unnecessary things, but these issues might only occur on Sequoia Beta

（UTC+8 9.5 12:56）It seems that by cleaning the ~/Library/Containers/com.utmapp.UTM.* folder, I was able to get the program running normally.

 ~/Library/Containers/com.utmapp.UTM/Data/ ls Desktop Downloads Movies Pictures tmp Documents Library Music SystemData  ~/Library/Containers/com.utmapp.UTM/Data/ ..  ~/Library/Containers/com.utmapp.UTM/ ..  ~/Library/Containers/ rm -rf com.utmapp.UTM  ~/Library/Containers/ rm -rf com.utmapp.QEMUHelper  ~/Library/Containers/

[lassestilvang]

I have the same issue on macOS Sequoia RC (24A335).

Installed UTM for the first time (with Homebrew), created a couple of macOS and Ubuntu VM's and everything was working flawlessly. Then all of a sudden I started getting the "The file couldn't be opened" when creating a new VM and even editing an existing. Not sure what triggered it.

It seems that by cleaning the ~/Library/Containers/com.utmapp.UTM.* folder, I was able to get the program running normally.

Unfortunately this didn't work for me.

I also tried uninstalling (brew uninstall --cask utm --zap) and installing again but still getting the error...

[mbert]

Same issue here. Cannot assign a boot ISO image for installing an OS. Installed Sequoia yesterday and running UTM 4.5.4 (100). When trying to open an ISO from the VM's overview rather than the settings, no error message appears, but the selection is immediately reset (emptied) after having confirmed the selection.

[ddv12138]

Same issue here.

[dciancu]

Same issue macOS Sequoia 15.0 (24A335).

[marcmento]

Also getting the same issue, macOS 15.0 (24A335). Can't edit VM without getting "file couldn't be opened" message. Basically can't use my VM as I need to edit its settings to make it run

[frostydev99]

Has anyone solved this?

[robifaustmann]

I have the same issue on macOS Sequoia 15.0 and UTM 4.4.5. I keep getting the error message but the changes seem to be saved. Changing the network settings on the VM gives an error message but the changes are still saved. The error message is not affecting the function and the bug seems to be only cosmetical.

Neither updating to UTM 4.5.4 nor buying the app from the App Store helps. The update 4.5.4 doesn't remove the error message.

[dcvr2469]

Same issue with macOS Sequoia 15.0 and UTM 4.5.4. Uninstalling/reinstalling UTM = no change. Clearing the mentioned folder(s), ~/Library/Containers/com.utmapp.UTM = no change. Another problem, if it hasn't already been mentioned, immediately following the creation of a new VM, the VM does not show until closing and reopening UTM.

[scramlo]

Same issue here.

[cusspvz]

Same, related with the disk/iso path. You can also replicate by adding an ISO removable drive. Happens on both QEMU and Apple Virtualization.

[rbgarga]

Same issue here using sequoia

[G4G4N]

Same issue here, from when I updated to Sequoia

[ITmaze]

It appears that #6709 is another symptom.

I wonder if the issue is a permissions one caused by Sequoia. I note errors in launchd.log which might be related:

./com.apple.xpc.launchd/launchd.log:2024-10-03 13:26:33.882914 (pid/66653 [UTM]) <Warning>: failed activation: name = com.utmapp.UTM.apple-extension-service, flags = 0x0, requestor = com.apple.appki[71850], error = 1: Operation not permitted
./com.apple.xpc.launchd/launchd.log:2024-10-03 13:38:46.837092 (pid/72135 [UTM]) <Warning>: failed activation: name = com.utmapp.UTM.apple-extension-service, flags = 0x0, requestor = com.apple.appki[72139], error = 1: Operation not permitted
./com.apple.xpc.launchd/launchd.log:2024-10-03 13:40:09.131939 (pid/72158 [UTM]) <Warning>: failed activation: name = com.utmapp.UTM.apple-extension-service, flags = 0x0, requestor = com.apple.appki[72163], error = 1: Operation not permitted
./com.apple.xpc.launchd/launchd.log:2024-10-03 13:54:19.242187 (pid/73688 [UTM]) <Warning>: failed activation: name = com.utmapp.UTM.apple-extension-service, flags = 0x0, requestor = com.apple.appki[73701], error = 1: Operation not permitted
./com.apple.xpc.launchd/launchd.log:2024-10-03 13:56:19.552343 (pid/73734 [UTM]) <Warning>: failed activation: name = com.utmapp.UTM.apple-extension-service, flags = 0x0, requestor = com.apple.appki[73740], error = 1: Operation not permitted
./com.apple.xpc.launchd/launchd.log:2024-10-03 13:57:38.779096 (pid/73756 [UTM]) <Warning>: failed activation: name = com.utmapp.UTM.apple-extension-service, flags = 0x0, requestor = com.apple.appki[73765], error = 1: Operation not permitted

I note that I attempted to move machines around and the result was that the "moved" machine became unusable.

I also created two machines with the same name, neither opened the preferences pane when I ticked the box during creation.

I was unable to point at a .ISO file in my home directory and I was unable to set the shared directory to /Users/Shared which is what I'd been using before upgrading to Sequoia.

I was unable to locate any UTM specific logging and I'm fairly sure that the issue occurs outside qemu, as-in, this is a UTM issue. Existing machines that have not been edited appear to work normally.

I also note that for a period after upgrading to Sequoia I was able to use UTM normally. It wasn't until today that it all broke. I have only rebooted after the upgrade, six days ago.

I am unable to determine if there is a "helper" process that is running asynchronously that might be causing this.

Installed via homebrew:

$ brew info utm 
==> utm: 4.5.4
https://mac.getutm.app/
Installed
/opt/homebrew/Caskroom/utm/4.5.4 (940.9MB)
  Installed using the formulae.brew.sh API on 2024-09-16 at 15:13:42
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/HEAD/Casks/u/utm.rb
==> Name
UTM
==> Description
Virtual machines UI using QEMU
==> Artifacts
UTM.app (App)
/Applications/UTM.app/Contents/MacOS/utmctl (Binary)
==> Analytics
install: 3,389 (30 days), 9,243 (90 days), 35,596 (365 days)

[ITmaze]

Also #6707

[ITmaze]

Also #6699

[ITmaze]

Also #6692

[ITmaze]

I have just installed the MacOS Sequoia update to 15.0.1. This comes with a reboot.

I don't know if the reboot or the upgrade fixed this issue, but so far I can edit the preferences of a VM.

[osy]

Can someone who is experiencing this issue generate a sysdiagnose as soon as they experience the error (so it can be the last event that is captured)? Note that this will contain identifiers from your machine including username, location, etc so only share it if you feel comfortable. You can email dev (at) getutm (dot) app with the dump.

[chunfengyao]

Same issue, fixed after upgrading the system to 15.0.1 (24A348). It might caused by macOS itself.
also #6699

[chunfengyao]

[osy]

Can others in this thread confirm if 15.0.1 fixes it?

[benmontycomputer]

15.0.1 fixed it for me.

[rbgarga]

Same here, 15.0.1 fixed it

[MandiYang]

I don't have any problems with UTM on Macos 15.0.1 so far

[dcvr2469]

Same issue with macOS Sequoia 15.0 and UTM 4.5.4. Uninstalling/reinstalling UTM = no change. Clearing the mentioned folder(s), ~/Library/Containers/com.utmapp.UTM = no change. Another problem, if it hasn't already been mentioned, immediately following the creation of a new VM, the VM does not show until closing and reopening UTM.

Upgrade to 15.0.1 seems to have resolved the issue for me

[ITmaze]

I'm sorry to report that the issue has now reoccurred after upgrading to macOS Sequoia 15.0.1. I have created a sysdiagnose. I actually created two. I saw the error. Quit UTM, created a sysdiagnose, launched UTM, generated the error, then created another sysdiagnose.

I am unable to determine which data in the 1,591 files that process generated contains personal and private information, so I'm uncomfortable with sending the entire archive.

Which files would you like to look at @osy ?

[osy]

To start with system_logs.logarchive is good

[ITmaze]

That directory alone is 373 MB and contains 717 files. Care to narrow it down a tad?

[osy]

You can grep for UTM (case sensitive) and only export lines containing that

[ITmaze]

Only three of the matching files are text files. This is the list of files that contain the string UTM. In total, compressed, they are 52M.

476K    ./Signpost/00000000000000f2.tracev3
4.0K    ./57/1EFCB0E9E53ED2A5ACCDD477CB16DE
4.0K    ./ED/C6578BAD13354383FA9725A19826CC
320K    ./7B/E6485FBD5B3702B50D63F6EFCB7E10
1.2M    ./2A/D9786F321D3C18A44E31BE04695BD7
 10M    ./logdata.LiveData.tracev3
1.4M    ./Special/00000000000004d9.tracev3
5.0M    ./Extra/logdata.statistics.1.jsonl
2.1M    ./Extra/logdata.statistics.0.jsonl
1.0M    ./Extra/logdata.statistics.1.txt
 10M    ./Persist/0000000000000629.tracev3
9.6M    ./Persist/0000000000000632.tracev3
121M    ./dsc/A02DCFBA3BDA3CA68A4212F00A4D75D3

[osy]

I guess they are compressed. Open the logarchive and it should open up Console. Type in UTM as the filter and see if you can export the resulting entries.

[ITmaze]

To create this I did the following:

• sudo sysdiagnose -f ~/Desktop/
• cd ~/Desktop/sysdiagnose_2024.10.08_10-42-38+0800_macOS_Mac15-12_24A348
• open system_logs.logarchive
• Wait for Console to launch
• Click "All Messages"
• Type UTM in the Search box and hit Enter.
• Select All
• Copy
• Open TextEdit
• Format -> Make Plain Text
• Paste
• Save As utm.log

utm.log

[osy]

To be clear, you've gotten the error when trying to save VM settings? I don't see any references to config.plist in the logs. Maybe you can search for that in the logarchive?

[ITmaze]

error	2024-10-08 10:42:01.003515 +0800	kernel	System Policy: sysdiagnosed(13980) deny(1) file-read-xattr /Users/onno/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.PegasusConfiguration/config.plist
error	2024-10-08 10:42:01.003997 +0800	kernel	System Policy: sysdiagnosed(13980) deny(1) file-read-data /Users/onno/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.PegasusConfiguration/config.plist
error	2024-10-08 10:44:16.716873 +0800	kernel	System Policy: sysdiagnosed(13980) deny(1) file-read-xattr /Users/onno/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.PegasusConfiguration/config.plist
error	2024-10-08 10:44:16.717206 +0800	kernel	System Policy: sysdiagnosed(13980) deny(1) file-read-data /Users/onno/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.PegasusConfiguration/config.plist

[ITmaze]

In answer to your question, yes, I was trying to save a VM preference.

[ITmaze]

Also, since you're likely to ask, this is the output from ls -l:

-rw-r--r--@ 1 onno  staff  51424  8 Oct 13:53 /Users/onno/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.PegasusConfiguration/config.plist

And this is what stat says:

16777234 4123923 -rw-r--r-- 1 onno staff 0 51424 "Oct  8 13:58:05 2024" "Oct  8 13:53:40 2024" "Oct  8 13:53:40 2024" "Oct  8 13:53:40 2024" 4096 104 0 /Users/onno/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.PegasusConfiguration/config.plist

[osy]

Okay but that's unrelated to UTM. It should be an error accessing some file in your .utm bundle.

[ITmaze]

What is the name of the file that the preferences save uses?

[osy]

Example: /Users/osy/Library/Containers/com.utmapp.UTM/Data/Documents/Linux.utm/config.plist

[ITmaze]

I've just created a VM from scratch, quit UTM, since you cannot click on the machine, relaunched, attempted to update the preferences (by turning off UEFI) and clicking "Save".

I then created a new sysdiagnose, extracted the logs, opened it in Console, searched for a different config.plist, it's not there, just the one I already showed you.

[JoshHrach]

I'm on 15.0.1 and am seeing this error when trying to save changes to my Shared Folder (well, it seems to have forgotten my shared folder, and now I can't save it, so no sharing is possible... argh!)

I'll send out a sysdiagnose later today.

[rbgarga]

Same here, 15.0.1 fixed it

Today, without upgrading neither macOS or UTM, the problem is back

[rbgarga]

Here you can find logs from sysdiagnose UTM.log

[tonilampela]

I don't know if this is at all related, but other apps are also seeing problems accessing files outside of macOS sandbox in Sequoia and apparently fix is incoming in macOS 15.1 which is due next week:

https://www.reddit.com/r/strongbox/comments/1fo7z20/comment/lp5mtnu/

EDIT: I can confirm that upgrading to macOS 15.1 RC fixed this error for me.

[4WvgqJu]

I've issues too with Sequoia.

[JoshHrach]

Just installed macOS 15.1 and the issue is resolved with it.

[osy]

Please update to 15.1 if you haven't already. Apple claims to have fixed the issue.

[jpwynn]

For Sonoma, is this the same "sandbox" issue discussed here for Sequoia? Or should I report this in a new post?

I am having precisely the same "The file couldn’t be opened" issue on Sonoma 14.7.1 (MBP M2 32GB) when trying to change any settings or set my Shared Directory.

• Originally installed 4.5.4 under Ventura, with windows 11 arm, worked great.
• Upgraded to Sonoma 14.7.1 a several days ago
• Tried to open my windows 11arm VM but got the "Cannot access TPM data" error
• Upgraded from UTM 4.5.4 to 4.6.3 to see if that helped; no change
• First, I set permissions on the vm .utm file in the ~/Library/Containers/UTM/Data/Documents folder to give all users read_write permission (per another comment here on UTM issues)
• Next, per another comment thread I turned off Settings > QEMU > "TMP 2.0 Device" ... when I clicked 'save' I got the "The file couldn’t be opened" error HOWEVER that setting does stay off
• • Now I can run the VM, BUT... without the previously set shared directory
• The shared directory, which worked previously, is no longer present inside the Windows11arm VM, and if I quit the vm and re-try to set the shared directory, it gives the "The file couldn’t be opened" error message.

Interestingly, even though it will not let me "set" the shared directory, when I click the "browse" button to do so, it does default to whatever folder I last tried to set... so the selected folder does get "saved in there somewhere" but cannot be "set" where UTM uses it.

TLDR; changing any setting (for my preexisting W11 vm, and for that matter, also for my preexisting W10 vm) gives a "The file couldn’t be opened" error which prevents me form setting a Shared Directory

I suppose it's nice to know that IF it is the same sandbox issue as reported here on Sequoia the problem should go away if I bite the bullet and upgrade to Sequoia, but since this is my primary Dev't machine there are ample reasons to think I ought to wait several more months until a .2 or .3 release (as I usually do given the sad state of Apple's QA these days)... for example the numerous timemachine, SMB, spotlight, photos, window placement, VPN, keychain/secure notes, and other ongoing issues reported in reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1fihlge/macos_15_sequoia_bugs_and_issues_megathread

UPDATE: a related issue I just noticed, I tried to "move" the .utm vm from my boot drive to a different partition on the same drive, and it (A) succesfully copied the .utm file as expected BUT (b) then gave the "The file couldn’t be opened" error and (c) DID NOT remove the "old" .utm file (d) NOR did it update UTM to point to the new .utm file.

So whatever the permission issue is also prevents finalizing a "move".

[ITmaze]

While I'm not the developer, I think it's appropriate to note here that this is being experienced in both versions of the OS. Although I cannot speak directly to the question about Sonoma, I note that when I reported the original bug, there appeared to be some sort of relationship between the bug occuring and the Mac having been rebooted. I was not able to discover the specifics of this relationship, other than to say that I observed that immediately after reboot it all appeared to work fine, but sometime later it didn't. I wonder if this might also be true for Sonoma.

[jpwynn]

I was not able to discover the specifics of this relationship, other than to say that I observed that immediately after reboot it all appeared to work fine, but sometime later it didn't. I wonder if this might also be true for Sonoma.

Thanks. AFAIK I have only one other app that after "upgrading" from Ventura to Sonoma has inexplicable permissions issues during configuration (Cookie.app a clipboard manager) so it might be related.

I find the UTM issue gives the "The file couldn’t be opened" 100% of the time even immediately after a reboot.

[GeoffatMM]

I am also getting this message but if I cancel out of the window then go back into the VM settings, the change has taken place.