# Flox/podman environment seems corrupt

**URL:** <https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072>\
**Category:** Bug Reports\
**Created:** [January 31, 2025, 8:48am UTC](https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072 "2025-01-31T08:48:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![t0rx](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.flox.dev/t0rx/32/705_2.png) [@t0rx](https://discourse.flox.dev/u/t0rx)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2025, 8:48am UTC](https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072/1 "2025-01-31T08:48:15Z")

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I’m getting the following when trying to use the pre-canned Flox podman environment. Have tried this on a couple of different machines.

```auto
~/dev$ flox activate -r flox/podman
❌ ERROR: Failed to parse lockfile as JSON: Invalid version at line 2 column 23

This is likely due to a corrupt environment.

```

The error message is different from if I’d mistyped the name, as that gives “ref not found”.

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**Author:** ![t0rx](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.flox.dev/t0rx/32/705_2.png) [@t0rx](https://discourse.flox.dev/u/t0rx)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2025, 3:08pm UTC](https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072/2 "2025-01-31T15:08:34Z")

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BTW, this is referenced from [Flox | Run Containers Easily with Podman + Flox](https://flox.dev/blog/run-containers-easily-with-podman-flox/).

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**Author:** ![mkenigs](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.flox.dev/mkenigs/32/520_2.png) [@mkenigs](https://discourse.flox.dev/u/mkenigs)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2025, 3:45pm UTC](https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072/3 "2025-01-31T15:45:31Z")

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Thanks for the heads up! We’ll get this fixed

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**Author:** ![mkenigs](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.flox.dev/mkenigs/32/520_2.png) [@mkenigs](https://discourse.flox.dev/u/mkenigs)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 3:10pm UTC](https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072/4 "2025-02-05T15:10:18Z")

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This should be fixed now! Let us know if you see further issues

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![t0rx](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.flox.dev/t0rx/32/705_2.png) [@t0rx](https://discourse.flox.dev/u/t0rx)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 9:19pm UTC](https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072/5 "2025-02-05T21:19:55Z")

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Yep, working now, thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![t0rx](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.flox.dev/t0rx/32/705_2.png) [@t0rx](https://discourse.flox.dev/u/t0rx)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 9:43pm UTC](https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072/6 "2025-02-05T21:43:32Z")

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Actually, I may have spoken too soon. I don’t get the corruption error, however the flox/podman environment is not activating properly:

```auto
bash-5.2# flox activate -r flox/podman
✅ You are now using the environment 'flox/podman (remote)'.
To stop using this environment, type 'exit'

🍟 Podman is available.
bash-5.2# which podman
which: no podman in (/root/.nix-profile/bin:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/bin:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/sbin)

bash-5.2# flox envs
Inactive environments:
  podman /root/.cache/flox/remote/flox/podman

```

This is from within the latest [Package flox · GitHub](http://ghcr.io/flox/flox) OCI container running under Docker.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mkenigs](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.flox.dev/mkenigs/32/520_2.png) [@mkenigs](https://discourse.flox.dev/u/mkenigs)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 10:28pm UTC](https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072/7 "2025-02-05T22:28:44Z")

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Ugh you’re right. Another fix coming…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mkenigs](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.flox.dev/mkenigs/32/520_2.png) [@mkenigs](https://discourse.flox.dev/u/mkenigs)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2025, 11:53pm UTC](https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072/8 "2025-02-05T23:53:22Z")

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Okay made another fix - how about now?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![t0rx](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.flox.dev/t0rx/32/705_2.png) [@t0rx](https://discourse.flox.dev/u/t0rx)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2025, 11:29am UTC](https://discourse.flox.dev/t/flox-podman-environment-seems-corrupt/1072/9 "2025-02-06T11:29:30Z")

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Activation now working, thanks. I’m getting some other permission problems now but need to dig into those a bit as they may be just about running Podman inside docker rather than being Flox-specific.