Nothing short of unsable on Windows

[etienne_clerc (Étienne Clerc)]

Q: Date/Time this occurred (Provide your time zone as well)
A: N/A

Q: DevKinsta Version
A: 2.13.4

Q: OS Version
A: Windows 11 23H2

Q: Docker Desktop Version
A: 4.36.0

Q: Were any error codes or messages observed? If so, what were they?
A: Multiple errors; details are provided below.

---

Our agency is transitioning to Kinsta from Flywheel/WP Engine. While the hosting itself and support have been excellent—far superior to WP Engine—DevKinsta has been problematic from the start. I’ve encountered issues consistently, preventing me from completing the most basic workflow of pulling a website from Kinsta, working on it locally, and pushing changes back to Kinsta. Not once has this workflow succeeded entirely without failure, forcing me to find alternative methods. This has been the case across multiple websites.

I understand that some of these issues might not be directly related to DevKinsta itself, but they appear tied to it, as I don’t encounter these problems with WP Local (using the same websites).

Here are the current issues I’m facing that currently make DevKinsta unusable:

---

Error #1

This occurred with a fresh WordPress project featuring a custom theme. It’s a standard setup using Vite for bundling. When running Vite commands (vite build or vite build --watch), I encounter this error:

error during build:
Could not resolve entry module "index.html".
    at getRollupError (file://wsl.localhost/docker-desktop-data/data/docker/volumes/DevKinsta/public/cqsepe/wp-content/themes/cqsepe/node_modules/vite/node_modules/rollup/dist/es/shared/parseAst.js:396:41)
    at error (file://wsl.localhost/docker-desktop-data/data/docker/volumes/DevKinsta/public/cqsepe/wp-content/themes/cqsepe/node_modules/vite/node_modules/rollup/dist/es/shared/parseAst.js:392:42)
    at ModuleLoader.loadEntryModule (file://wsl.localhost/docker-desktop-data/data/docker/volumes/DevKinsta/public/cqsepe/wp-content/themes/cqsepe/node_modules/vite/node_modules/rollup/dist/es/shared/node-entry.js:20109:20)
    at async Promise.all (index 0)

The commands work without issue on WP Local and outside of DevKinsta. If I copy the project files from DevKinsta to my desktop, the commands execute successfully. This suggests an issue with DevKinsta itself.

---

Error #2

This occurred with a fresh WordPress install using a different theme that utilizes Gulp. Similar to Error #1, it works on WP Local and outside of DevKinsta but fails within DevKinsta.

Error: File not found with singular glob: //wsl.localhost/docker-desktop-data/data/docker/volumes/DevKinsta/public/basecampconnect/wp-content/themes/base-camp/assets/src/scss/main.scss (if this was purposeful, use `allowEmpty` option)
    at Glob.<anonymous> (\\wsl.localhost\docker-desktop-data\data\docker\volumes\DevKinsta\public\basecampconnect\wp-content\themes\base-camp\node_modules\glob-stream\readable.js:84:17)
    at Object.onceWrapper (events.js:421:26)
    at Glob.emit (events.js:314:20)
    at Glob.EventEmitter.emit (domain.js:483:12)
    at Glob._finish (\\wsl.localhost\docker-desktop-data\data\docker\volumes\DevKinsta\public\basecampconnect\wp-content\themes\base-camp\node_modules\glob\glob.js:195:8)
    at done (\\wsl.localhost\docker-desktop-data\data\docker\volumes\DevKinsta\public\basecampconnect\wp-content\themes\base-camp\node_modules\glob\glob.js:180:14)
    at Glob._processSimple2 (\\wsl.localhost\docker-desktop-data\data\docker\volumes\DevKinsta\public\basecampconnect\wp-content\themes\base-camp\node_modules\glob\glob.js:686:12)
    at \\wsl.localhost\docker-desktop-data\data\docker\volumes\DevKinsta\public\basecampconnect\wp-content\themes\base-camp\node_modules\glob\glob.js:674:10
    at Glob._stat2 (\\wsl.localhost\docker-desktop-data\data\docker\volumes\DevKinsta\public\basecampconnect\wp-content\themes\base-camp\node_modules\glob\glob.js:770:12)
    at lstatcb_ (\\wsl.localhost\docker-desktop-data\data\docker\volumes\DevKinsta\public\basecampconnect\wp-content\themes\base-camp\node_modules\glob\glob.js:762:12)

---

Performance Issues

In addition to the above errors, DevKinsta is extremely slow on Windows. This includes:

• Navigating the website
• Searching files
• Running basic commands like npm install and resource bundling

These tasks are noticeably faster on WP Local and outside of DevKinsta.

---

We’ll leave it at that for now to keep things simple. I hope these details help in diagnosing these issues. If needed, I can provide repositories, set up staging environments, or perform any other steps to assist in resolving this.

Thank you in advance for your help! This is critical for our daily workflow and I don’t want to be forced to move 300+ websites to another hosting because of DevKinsta alone.

[Adrian_L (Adrian Lorica)]

Hi @etienne_clerc

Error #1 and Error #2,

Based on the error messages that you shared, it seems this is related to Docker Desktop 4.30 update, wherein Docker Desktop removed the use of Docker-Desktop-Data and switched to just using Docker-Desktop as its distro folder instead starting at version 4.30, while DevKinsta still uses Docker-Desktop-Data as its default path. However, this conflict only affects DevKinsta if you’re installing the Docker Desktop app through WSL2 instead of Hyper-V. If your Windows Operating system is Windows 11 Pro or higher, you can install the latest version of Docker Desktop through Hyper-v instead.

(Unchecked “Use WSL 2 instead of Hyper-V”)

Unfortunately, if you’re on Windows 11 Home, you can only install Docker Desktop through WSL. For this to work, you’ll have to install Docker Desktop version 4.29 or lower. You can check this post here for the suggested workaround.

DevKinsta WSL DK0083 - My Solution

I finally found a solution for installing DevKinsta in Windows 11 using WSL instead of Hyper-V. I couldn’t get Hyper-V to work. It kept giving me the “Something Bad Happened” no matter what I did. I am posting my steps here since I know there are a lot of folks wanting a solution. Results may vary… BTW This is assuming you already setup your machine with WSL-2. I won’t put that info here, since you can find info for that all over this and other sites. Shutdown and uninstall any version of Dock…

Performance Issues

As for the Devkinsta app’s performance, you can try allocating as many resources as possible to the Docker Desktop and checking if it improves performance. You can navigate through Docker Desktop >> Settings >> Resources page to increase its allocated resources.

Example:

(Note: DevKinsta’s development is currently in Maintenance Mode. This means that while our developer team works to keep DevKinsta SOC-2 compliant and will continue to resolve any critical security bugs, further app improvements are on hold until further notice.)

I hope this information helps.

Best,

[etienne_clerc (Étienne Clerc)]

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for getting back to me. I went ahead and purchased a Windows 11 Pro license, and it looks like Hyper-V resolved the Gulp/Vite issues now that everything’s running directly on my actual drive (similar to WP Local).

However, I’ve run into a couple of new problems since:

1. Pulling two websites from Kinsta took about an hour total. It got stuck downloading the files for some reason, even though I have a very fast internet connection. The process eventually completed, but this is unworkable—those same websites take only 3-4 minutes to pull on WP Local.
2. After finally getting the sites set up in DevKinsta, I could work on them as usual. But when I tried to push my changes back to Kinsta, I encountered the following error: DK0065. I tried logging out and back in, restarting DevKinsta, but the error persisted. When I canceled the push, I got another error: DK0011.

Now I’m stuck transferring the files manually over FTP.

I’m starting to lose faith in DevKinsta as a reliable product. Let me know if you’d like me to provide logs or anything else that might help.

Thanks!

[Adrian_L (Adrian Lorica)]

@etienne_clerc

I’m sorry to hear that you continue to experience issues with our Devkinsta app. Indeed, please send us the raw main.log file so we can investigate further as to why the Push to Kinsta action is failing.

You can get the main.log file by clicking on the “Reveal log file in File Manager” under the Help and Support page in Devkinsta.

[etienne_clerc (Étienne Clerc)]

Hi Adrian,

Here are the logs!
(main.log redacted)

Thank you!

[Adrian_L (Adrian Lorica)]

Thanks for sharing the main.log file. I checked and it seem the following error is what stands out in the log.

[error] Error: Encountered an error in child process 2868: 125. docker: Error response from daemon: Conflict. The container name "/devkinsta_push_30d70d2c0988486cb0a6fa5446ed7408" is already in use by container "51c2d080accecb7727161c571738f968fa511126ae2083ffae7e8789aa471224". You have to remove (or rename) that container to be able to reuse that name.

It appears that there is a conflict with the local site container linking to the Kinsta server during the Push action. I recommend logging out of your Kinsta account registered to Devkinsta, and then logging back in. After that, try the Push to Devkinsta action again.

If the issue persists, consider reviewing your existing local sites and deleting any that may not have been set up properly.

Let us know how it goes.

[etienne_clerc (Étienne Clerc)]

Hi Adrian,

I tried logging out and logging back in, but I still get the same error (I also tried with a different website). Could it be because I pulled local websites from 2 different Kinsta accounts?

Thanks!

[Alessandro]

Hi @etienne_clerc
Can you please open Docker, move into the Containers page and see if there’s a stuck devkinsta_push_ container? If there’s one (and you are not running any other push) please try to rename it

Regards,
Alessandro

[etienne_clerc (Étienne Clerc)]

hi @Alessandro,

No stuck devkinsta_push_ container present in Docker unfortunatly. I deleted every website and started over again. I was able to pull some of them, but again, I’ve had most of the websites fail at some point during pulling or pushing (on top of it being unworkably slow, it’s not realistic to have to wait 1h+ every time I need to work on a website).

Here are my logs again, if that helps.
(main.log redacted) (34.7 KB)
(main.old.log redacted) (1.2 MB)

Sorry for not having anything more precise to report, it just seems to fail in a different way every time I click a button. Does DevKinsta actually work on Windows, or am I wasting my time at this point?

Thanks.

[Adrian_L (Adrian Lorica)]

Hi @etienne_clerc

I am sorry to hear that you continue to face issues, specifically when performing Push/Pull actions through DevKinsta.

I tested myself by pulling a 1GB (files and database) site at least twice on each of the following machines. All are connected under one ISP:

Windows (HyperV) - 30 minutes average
Windows (WSL) - approximately 7 minutes
Mac - approximately 5 minutes

Based on my test, there is indeed a significant delay when pulling a site when using Windows (HyperV), although the action is still completed successfully at the end. Since the pull action continues to fail on your end, I suggest completely deleting the DevKinsta Containers, Images, and Volumes inside the Docker Desktop and then relaunching DevKinsta to start fresh. (Note, that this will delete all existing local sites that may have running in DevKinsta. )

Regretfully, if you need the pull action to complete faster, I can only suggest switching to Mac or Windows (WSL). Please note that Windows (WSL) doesn’t work out of the box due to compatibility issues with WSL and the latest Docker versions, as stated in my previous replies.

I apologize for this inconvenience.