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This page lists common Compute errors and states, what they mean, and how to fix them. To check on workloads and Instances first, see Operations.
Compute is in preview, and the v1alpha API can change.

Common problems

The following table lists common errors and states, what they mean, and how to fix them. Errors that Datum returns when you apply a workload appear in the command output. Reasons appear in datumctl get workloads, datumctl get instances, and datumctl compute instances describe.

See why an Instance won’t start

When an Instance can’t start, Datum records why. In the Cloud Portal, open the workload and select the Activity tab. Each Instance’s start, stop, and failure appears with a plain-language reason. In this example, two Instances couldn’t start because their location refused the Linux capabilities the containers requested, and the platform keeps retrying. The fix is in the workload’s configuration, not in the Instance.
The Activity tab of a workload, listing Instances that started running, Instances that are shutting down to be replaced, and two Instances that could not start because the location refused the Linux capabilities their containers request

A workload's Activity tab, showing Instances that couldn't start because of their configuration

To see the same reason from a terminal, run datumctl compute instances describe INSTANCE_NAME, or list recent events with datumctl activity events. To see a history of changes to your workloads, use datumctl activity. For more information, see Querying activity. If you can’t resolve a problem, contact support@datum.net with the workload name, the project ID, and the output of datumctl compute instances describe INSTANCE_NAME.

Debug inside an Instance

To open an interactive shell or run a command in a running general-purpose Instance, see Instance shell. A shell needs the Instance to be running and the image to include sh. If the container exits too quickly to open a shell (InstanceNotRunning), read its logs instead. To read Instance output and CPU and memory usage, see Observability.

What’s next

Last modified on October 23, 2026