Toolhive keep restarting

[skullq]

Bug description

Toolhive keep restarting after fresh installation

Steps to reproduce

Just run it

Actual behavior

• I' m using Podman and it's working good. When i try to run toolhive, it's keep restarting. using cli i can see below error.
• I would like to know why Toolhive can't find podman container runtime and how to fix this issue?

$ thv --version
12:48PM ERROR no container runtime available. ToolHive requires Docker, Podman, Colima, or a Kubernetes environment to run MCP servers

$ podman version
Client: Podman Engine
Version: 5.6.2
API Version: 5.6.2
Go Version: go1.25.1
Built: Tue Sep 30 23:50:46 2025
Build Origin: brew
OS/Arch: darwin/arm64

Server: Podman Engine
Version: 5.6.0
API Version: 5.6.0
Go Version: go1.24.6
Git Commit: da671ef6cfa3fc9ac6225c18f1dd0a70a951e43f
Built: Fri Aug 15 09:00:00 2025
OS/Arch: linux/arm64

• using docker cli i can see container status
  $ podman ps -a
  CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
  ad9eae3a384a quay.io/slopezpa/fedora-vgpu:latest 5 days ago Up 12 minutes brave_curie

Environment (if relevant)

• OS/version:
  Mac M4 Tahoe 26.0.1
• ToolHive version:
  ToolHive v0.3.7
  Commit: abb22d8
  Built: 2025-10-06 08:45:05 UTC
  Go version: go1.24.4
  Platform: darwin/arm64

[eleftherias]

Thanks for the report @skullq, I can see we need to update the path in the ToolHive codebase. In the meantime, if you use Podman Desktop it will manage the socket automatically and will work with the current ToolHive version.

[skullq]

Thanks for the report @skullq, I can see we need to update the path in the ToolHive codebase. In the meantime, if you use Podman Desktop it will manage the socket automatically and will work with the current ToolHive version.

Hi @eleftherias
Thank for your quick feedback. I have couple of questions.

1. You said podman desktop will manage the socket automatically but Still I'm no luck to run toolhive. What's wrong with me? (manual work to make it happen?)
2. If you fix the code where is the fixed code and how to download it?

I can find socket file location using "podman machine inspect"

podman machine inspect
[
{
"ConfigDir": {
"Path": "/Users/junghlee/.config/containers/podman/machine/libkrun"
},
"ConnectionInfo": {
"PodmanSocket": {
"Path": "/var/folders/lm/vyyrj2y16_v3tty8gxn1qj580000gn/T/podman/podman-machine-default-api.sock"
},
"PodmanPipe": null
},
"Created": "2025-08-29T12:25:22.570642+09:00",
"LastUp": "2025-10-14T12:34:01.865054+09:00",
"Name": "podman-machine-default",
"Resources": {
"CPUs": 7,
"DiskSize": 93,
"Memory": 3814,
"USBs": []
},
"SSHConfig": {
"IdentityPath": "/Users/junghlee/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/machine",
"Port": 49210,
"RemoteUsername": "core"
},
"State": "running",
"UserModeNetworking": true,
"Rootful": true,
"Rosetta": false
}
]

$ podman machine inspect --format '{{.ConnectionInfo.PodmanSocket.Path}}'
/var/folders/lm/vyyrj2y16_v3tty8gxn1qj580000gn/T/podman/podman-machine-default-api.sock

Also I configured DOCKER_HOST in bash_profile
export DOCKER_HOST=unix:///var/folders/lm/vyyrj2y16_v3tty8gxn1qj580000gn/T/podman/podman-machine-default-api.sock
export CONTAINERS_MACHINE_PROVIDER=libkrun

[eleftherias]

Hi @skullq

You said podman desktop will manage the socket automatically but Still I'm no luck to run toolhive. What's wrong with me? (manual work to make it happen?)

To make it work for me I had to start Podman Desktop and configure podman-mac-helper. This was all done through the Podman Desktop app.

If you fix the code where is the fixed code and how to download it?

The fixed code is now available in version 0.3.8. Your update steps will depend on how you installed it. If you used Homebrew you can run brew update and then brew upgrade thv. The other installation methods are described in the documentation.

[skullq]

Hi @skullq

You said podman desktop will manage the socket automatically but Still I'm no luck to run toolhive. What's wrong with me? (manual work to make it happen?)

To make it work for me I had to start Podman Desktop and configure podman-mac-helper. This was all done through the Podman Desktop app.

If you fix the code where is the fixed code and how to download it?

The fixed code is now available in version 0.3.8. Your update steps will depend on how you installed it. If you used Homebrew you can run brew update and then brew upgrade thv. The other installation methods are described in the documentation.

Hi @eleftherias

Using podman-mac-helper, I can run toolhive. Thank you so much!