Failed to create shim task

Docker Desktop Docker Sandbox
1

Hiya - with massive apologies, I am a complete beginner at using command line interfaces, let alone Docker. However, my goal is to run Claude Cowork inside of a Docker Sandbox - but I’m falling at an early hurdle.

I’ve successfully followed the Get Started instructions for Windows (10) up to ‘Run your first sandbox’, having skipped ‘Authenticate your agent’ as I have a Claude subscription so will be logging in directly inside the sandbox using OAuth (in theory).

Following

sbx run claude

or

sbx create claude

I keep running in to the same error:

C:\Users\Pesky>sbx create claude .
f10019f63497: Already exists
c710381616e7: Already exists
9693f8db3e92: Already exists
Digest: sha256:f10019f63497a548d142b64b1f4dd5dc8cf7f61c3ef21f085a7a9683393d8342
Status: Image is up to date for docker/sandbox-templates:claude-code-docker
INFO: Configuring Docker
ERROR: create sandbox: create sandbox: run sandbox: start container: container start: Error response from daemon: creating containerd task for container 48731e777241: failed to create shim task: VM did not connect within 30s

I’ve already tried to make sure my user has sufficient privileges by adding {DOMAIN}\Pesky to the docker-users group, and restarted the PC.

I’ve run sbx diagnose which returns with 7 passed.

I’ve done my best to search for a solution but knowing so little about what I’m trying to delve into and Docker Sandbox being so relatively new hasn’t yielded me with many specific solutions to try that I at least understand sufficiently to attempt or recognise their relevance.

I’d be grateful for your help and advice. I have a hunch the solution is probably blindingly obvious to someone with experience.

2

The prerequisites doesn’t mention Windows 10, only Windows 11. Windows 10 reached its end of life and once it was also removed from the list of supported operating systems in the documentation of Docker Desktop, but it was added back possibly because of the optional extended support of Win10 which will also end soon. Docker Sandbox and sbx is very new and it is not likely that making it compatible with Windows was ever a goal.

Did you read Windows 10 specifically somewhere in the documentation?

3

Thanks rimelek. More fool me; I missed Windows 11 as a requirement. Guess it’s time to pull my head out of the sand and upgrade. Thanks for your help.

4

@riskquay Faced the same error today for the first time and was able to solve it using the workaround described in VM did not connect within 30s — all sandboxes fail on Windows 11 build 26200 (sbx v0.31.0) · Issue #179 · docker/sbx-releases.

My pre-requisites are a little different though as I am on Windows 11, but maybe Windows 10 is not even the problem, but just resource (particularly memory) availability as the linked issue describes.

Try to run `sbx run claude -m 2g` (for 2 GB of memory, adjust for however many are actually free on your system)

5

Just wanted to give an update.

Upgrading to Windows 11 indeed solved the issue and I was able to get Claude running in a sandbox.

Unfortunately it wasn’t the solution I needed as (I think) Docker wasn’t the right tool to run Claude Desktop and therefore Cowork. I’ve since got Claude Desktop running via a Hyper-V Manager virtual machine. I’m not sure if this was the most elegant solution, but it’s working at least.