Converting qcow2 to vmdk on MacOSX results in a non-bootable image

[Moshe Immerman]

When using qemu-img convert -O vmdk with version 3.1.0 or 4.0.0 on OSX (10.14.3) with a qcow2 image (https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/bionic/20190703/bionic-server-cloudimg-amd64.img), the resulting image is not bootable.

Running the same command on Ubuntu 18.04 results in a bootable image as expected

[Moshe Immerman (moshloop)]

Try the solutions in 1828508 ( -o adapter_type=lsilogic,subformat=monolithicFlat) 1776920 ( -S 0 ) do not work either

What other steps can I take to troubleshoot?

[John Snow (jnsnow)]

Does the problem happen only when the image is on APFS? when the destination is on APFS? Neither? Try to see if it's the filesystem. Use OSX to convert images on a non-APFS formatted external drive to see if that improves your luck.

I'm assuming this is a duplicate of 1776920 which is still open because we have no OSX developers willing or able to debug this problem.