# Mender-convert fails: error deallocating
**URL:** https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733
**Category:** General Discussions
**Created:** [October 23, 2020, 6:08pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733 "2020-10-23T18:08:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jmeirow](https://hub.mender.io/u/jmeirow)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2020, 6:08pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733/1 "2020-10-23T18:08:56Z")
I’m running mender-convert on MacOs.
When I run this command:
MENDER\_ARTIFACT\_NAME=mike-release-1.0 ./docker-mender-convert
–disk-image input/$INPUT\_DISK\_IMAGE
–config configs/comfile\_pi\_config
–overlay rootfs\_overlay\_prod
It runs for quite awhile, everything seems to be going fine, then right near the end, I get this message:
2020-10-23 17:29:00 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Copying root filesystem image to deploy directory
mender-convert-package has finished. Cleaning up…
2020-10-23 17:29:00 [ERROR] [mender-convert] mender-convert failed
2020-10-23 17:29:00 [DEBUG] [mender-convert-package] When running: (./mender-convert-package:203): run\_and\_log\_cmd():
```
cp --sparse=always work/rootfs.img deploy/golden-raspberrypi3-mender.ext4
cp: error deallocating 'deploy/golden-raspberrypi3-mender.ext4': Invalid argument
```
2020-10-23 17:29:00 [ERROR] [mender-convert] mender-convert failed
Has anyone else ever encountered something like this?
---
### Author:  [@drewmoseley](https://hub.mender.io/u/drewmoseley)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2020, 6:20pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733/2 "2020-10-23T18:20:58Z")
Hi @jmeirow I’ve never run this under MacOS but since it’s running under docker, in theory it should work. My guess it that it’s a resource allocation issue of some kind. Is it possible that you are low on disk space or system RAM?
Drew
---
### Author:  [@jmeirow](https://hub.mender.io/u/jmeirow)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2020, 6:40pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733/3 "2020-10-23T18:40:39Z")
It is possible I’m running low on memory, as I’m running some VMs on this Mac as well. For the moment, i am actually going to move the mender-convert onto the VM (Ubuntu Server LTS 18.04) and see how that goes.
---
### Author:  [@menderUser5000](https://hub.mender.io/u/menderUser5000)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2020, 6:08pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733/4 "2020-10-26T18:08:53Z")
I am having the same issue on Mac OS - but the setup definitely worked before.
---
### Author:  [@jmeirow](https://hub.mender.io/u/jmeirow)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2020, 6:26pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733/5 "2020-10-26T18:26:39Z")
It’s so interesting you mention that. It’s worked for me dozens and dozens of times before on MacOS, and then it just stopped working. Weird. At least we both know we aren’t the only one 🙂
I really need to plow ahead so I’m building a new build machine on Linux (a VM).
---
### Author:  [@c3ntry](https://hub.mender.io/u/c3ntry)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2020, 8:39am UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733/6 "2020-11-13T08:39:05Z")
Can anyone from the mender Team say anything about this? Is this a confirmed bug caused by some Mac OS Update?
---
### Author:  [@dellgreen](https://hub.mender.io/u/dellgreen)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2020, 12:20pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733/7 "2020-11-13T12:20:02Z")
Does it still fail when running in a Linux VM? Knowing the outcome of that test would help narrow the problem causes.
Also what version of Macos?
What filesystem is your Macos drive/s using?
Did you Macos undergo an update recently?
---
### Author:  [@jmeirow](https://hub.mender.io/u/jmeirow)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2020, 1:32pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733/8 "2020-11-13T13:32:57Z")
My apologies for not updating this sooner. Not only does run without error on Linux (Ubuntu LTS 20.04), but it runs many times faster, literally. On my MacBook Pro, which is no slouch, it used to take 45-50 minutes. Now on Ubuntu, running in a VM _on the same Mac_, it runs in 5-7 minutes.
---
### Author:  [@jmeirow](https://hub.mender.io/u/jmeirow)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2020, 1:37pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733/9 "2020-11-13T13:37:28Z")
My Mac is running Mojave (10.14.6). I can’t speak to recent OS updates as it’s controlled by corporate. Disk Utility reports that the file system is APFS.
---
### Author:  [@dellgreen](https://hub.mender.io/u/dellgreen)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://hub.mender.io/t/mender-convert-fails-error-deallocating/2733/10 "2020-11-13T14:19:55Z")
As to the speed, i have seen past reports of general performance issues between docker and MacOS running APFS file systems. I was also wondering if the APFS file system was also causing a problem for the sparse copy process in your error message as I have seen similar issues in other projects relating to ZFS.
I don’t have any macs to test only Linux machines, but if i did the next thing i would test would be to run docker on an HFS+ system (or external drive) not APFS, just to rule it in or out as a cause.