VMs can't boot with Network Mode set to Bridged on Apple M5 Pro machines

A fresh GitHub complaint says virtual computers in UTM won’t start at all on Apple M5 Pro machines if users pick the setting that lets the virtual machine connect more directly to the same network as the real computer. Switch that setting to safer alternatives like Host Only or Extended, and everything suddenly behaves. So yes, the machine runs — until one very specific option turns the whole thing into a frozen loading-screen horror show.

But the real spectacle is the comment section, where the mood swings from puzzled to full tech soap opera. One user summed up the first reaction with a dry, perfect: “That’s super weird.” Then came the veteran GitHub cynicism. Aurornis delivered the thread’s most dramatic read, basically saying this is the classic routine where someone insists it was never supposed to work, everyone else points out it works on other Macs, and then an Apple beta quietly fixes it anyway with zero changes from the app itself. In other words: is this a UTM bug, an Apple bug, or just another episode of “blame ping-pong”?

The speculation got juicier when one commenter pointed at the M5 Pro’s fancy new wireless chip via a Wikipedia page, hinting that Apple’s newest hardware may be the real diva here. Another dropped the spicy elitist grenade, “Don’t try to do professional work on consumer hardware ...” Meanwhile, a Parallels user chimed in to say they hit the same bridged-networking mess on M5 too — which only poured fuel on the theory that this problem is bigger than one app. The vibe? Equal parts bug hunt, finger-pointing, and “lol of course the expensive new Mac broke something weird.”