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OrbStack fails to launch when its data drive on an external disk mounts too slowly #2189
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Hi there! I love using OrbStack on my headless Mac mini home server. My only hiccup is that I store the OrbStack data on an external drive. After a reboot, OrbStack often starts faster than my external drive can mount.
When this happens, it can't find its data and fails to launch, forcing me to log in and manually restart it each time the machine reboots.
Describe the solution you'd like
It would be amazing if OrbStack could handle this automatically. A couple of ideas:
Retry on failure: If the data directory isn't found on launch, could OrbStack wait and retry checking for it every 10-15 seconds for a few minutes?
Startup delay: Alternatively, a simple setting to delay OrbStack's startup by a configurable amount of time (e.g., 30 or 60 seconds) would also solve the problem perfectly.
Describe alternatives you've considered
I've thought about moving the data to my internal drive, but space is limited. I also considered a custom launch script to delay the start, but a built-in solution would be much cleaner and more reliable for everyone.
Additional context
This small improvement would be a huge help for anyone using OrbStack in an automated or "always-on" server environment. Thanks for making such a great tool!
I have exactly this issue. I have an (almost) always on server, exception is controlled shutdown due to power loss . When the power returns, eventually the machine starts, and it all works, except, Orbstack. So, then I have to remotely log in and start it.
I like option 1, retry some number of times every so often. But either would likely work.
Activity
sfatula commentedon Nov 30, 2025
I have exactly this issue. I have an (almost) always on server, exception is controlled shutdown due to power loss . When the power returns, eventually the machine starts, and it all works, except, Orbstack. So, then I have to remotely log in and start it.
I like option 1, retry some number of times every so often. But either would likely work.
kdrag0n commentedon May 23, 2026
Added for the next version.
kdrag0n commentedon Jun 4, 2026
Released in v2.2.0.