Reputation: 812

Docker Failed to Initialize on Windows

I have problem regarding pulling docker-dev in a docker image for making my development environment. When I tried to pull docker-dev, I got an error like "docker manifest not found."

Can anyone help me out with this error?

I want to know about the docker failed to initialize error which I'm getting right now.

The error is like this:

I tried so many things like re-installing the docker desktop or WSL updates, but none of those worked.

The error in the command is like this:

Upvotes: 58

Answers (24)

Jude

Reputation: 2433

I have just ended the process "Docker Desktop.exe" in the task manager. Started the Docker Desktop, it worked.

Upvotes: 0

Chetan Hegde

Reputation: 51

It worked after deleting both %appdata%\Docker and %appdata%\Docker Desktop directories for me.

Upvotes: 0

Koenigsberg

Reputation: 1798

Gonna throw in a scenario that I observed:

My error message was this:

Docker failed to initialize

Docker Desktop is shutting down.

Fixes, such as deleting Docker specific AppData did not resolve the problem. What did solve the issue is a simple reboot of Windows.

Here is what likely happened: The machine was supposed to be restarted after doing updates, however some process prevented the shutdown. While Windows remained running and simply showed the login screen, some Windows services were no longer running. Likely one of them is a Docker dependency. Because the screen looked the same as it would after a reboot, the lack of reboot went unnoticed. Because the machine presumably was just rebooted, rebooting to try if the Docker issue is resolved, did not immediately cross my mind. I then noticed that some applications that would usually auto-start were not running without me having shut them down, so then I realized what had happened. After the reboot the daemon started up normally.

TL;DR: Before you try more complex fixes - try rebooting first. Make sure the machine actually reboots, as in, observe it rebooting.

Upvotes: 0

j4jada

Reputation: 722

Just wanted to share what worked for me. I have Docker Desktop 4.24.2 installed. Resetting the Docker Desktop to factory defaults fixed my issue.

Upvotes: 0

Marlika

Reputation: 1

In my case, given the same error what happened is that I was running in the background the 'docker desktop' and since it did not let me run it again, although it did not tell me that it was already running. From the 'Process Explorer' I killed it.

As a comment what in my case I detected that presented the error is that I made a download of the image "registry.hf.space/bhaskartripathi-pdfchatter:latest" and while this happened the wsl / 'docker desktop' gave error and closed.

An observation, when I wanted to run an image that had assigned volumes, it gave an error. What I did was to rename the "C:{USER}{USER}{AppData\Roaming\Docker}settings.json" to initialize the 'docker desktop', in this way I could remove the volumes and then run the image without problems.

Upvotes: 0

nessunluogo

Reputation: 520

Short solution: delete %appdata%\Docker\settings.json and let Docker to create a new one.

Take a backup of the file for the next time it gets broken.

<tl;dr>

I face this issue almost every month and I hope this will get fixed definitely.

Following tmBlackCape answer, I checked the %appdata%\Docker directory and found settings.json damaged (editor tells it's a binary file and of course it shouldn't).

I deleted the file and Docker Service (still running) created a new one with default values. If the service isn't running, just launch it again.

You could need to change settings (via GUI, as recommended) to catch your needs.

I made a backup copy of my custom settings.json so next time I can replace the broken one without losing custom configuration.

Upvotes: 39

hammad khadim

Reputation: 1

if you still can't find the issue you may use this trick and i'm 100% sure this will work

first check your operating system is up to date means no remaining updates if you pass this step then come to 2 step open window command prompt in run as administrator then type wsl --install then type wsl --list --online then wsl --install -d Debian then open docker if error come then install wsl 2 linux https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual#step-4---download-the-linux-kernel-update-package

then restart docker or your machine and then if error also occur then type then wsl --update i hope this will work Regard : Hammad Khadim

Upvotes: 0

Navneil Naicker

Reputation: 3691

I had the same issue. I'm on Docker Desktop 4.8.0. The following solution worked for me:

Uninstall Docker Desktop
Delete .docker folder from C:\Users\{Username}
Delete Docker folder from C:\Users\{Username}\AppData\Local
Delete Docker folder from C:\Users\{Username}\AppData\Roaming
Delete Docker folder from C:\Program Files
Run CCleaner on Registry and Custom Clean
Restart Computer
Install Docker
Restart Computer
Start Docker

That's all.

Upvotes: 3

Mihi Hewawasam

Reputation: 11

The below Steps worked for me,

Step 01: Navigate to the below-mentioned paths and delete the below-mentioned directories,

C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Docker directory

C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Docker directory

C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Docker Desktop directory

Then restart the docker again

If you didn't find the AppData folder in users[USERNAME] or anywhere

Step 02: Type the below path in the "Run" to directly open the app data location for you

%appdata%\Docker

Then Delete the below-mentioned directories,

C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Docker directory

C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Docker directory

C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Docker Desktop directory

Then restart the docker again

Note: If these steps do not help you. Try to kill all the processes running in through the task manager. And again delete the directories and start the docker

Upvotes: 0

burak isik

Reputation: 571

Removing settings.json file or %AppData%\Docker folder did not work for me. After uninstalling/installing the docker, the issue was solved. (Note: I couldn't try other possible solutions that are required the admin privilege)

Upvotes: 0

WARUTS

Reputation: 72

latest update 4.10.1 has issues, i downgraded to 4.6.1 and it worked however i think powershell is closely linked to this issue

Upvotes: 1

Stefan Gabor

Reputation: 467

There are a few great solutions; however, it didn't work for me. Most of the "fixes" suggested here are already implemented and it just didn't work. I chose a different approach. I looked at the docker releases and saw what was actually affected by their latest version not working (4.10). These things are normal, especially if the software engine has been updated. Going through Docker releases, the latest release that didn't touch the Docker engine is 4.8.0. I downloaded and works great.

Upvotes: 0

MikeVe

Reputation: 1120

The error message I got was not exactly the same the OP got. For me, it said Docker failed to initialize. Docker Desktop is shutting down.

TL;DR

The powershell executable was missing from my local machies PATH. I had to add C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0 and docker started again.

The longer story

I tried everything that was mentined in this thread and nothing worked for me. When I looked at the task manager of my local machine to see if any docker-related process was started, I noticed that Docker Desktop.exe itself was started. However, the com.docker.backend.exe not. Docker tries to start that exe in an infinite loop, but as soon as it started it crashed again after half a second.

I then took a look into com.docker.backend.exe.log, which is located in %localappdata%\Docker\log\host and noticed the following line:

[2022-07-07T10:46:57.936079700Z][com.docker.backend.exe][F] exec: "powershell": executable file not found in %PATH%

I then went ahead and just added the path to powershell to PATH (which is C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0)`. As soon as I added that, everything started working again.

I have no idea how the path to the powershell executable got removed from PATH. I certainly did not do that myself.

Upvotes: 13

sitrarasu annadurai

Reputation: 189

It resolved me by deleting the file C:\Users{username}\AppData\Roaming\Docker\settings.json

Upvotes: 3

Danon

Reputation: 2973

For me the solutions here didn't help, but here's what helped.

Make sure the folder .docker/ in your home directory isn't marked as hidden in Windows. If it's hidden, Docker won't see it.
Make sure docker has Active Directory to .docker folder. For example, if the owner of .docker/ is SYSTEM and not your user, Docker won't be able to read it and crash.

Upvotes: 3

FiNaLsPY

Reputation: 55

On my side, uninstalling HyperV did the trick :

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-Hypervisor

I also (as suggested in the voted answer):

Uninstalled docker desktop,
Deleted any docker related content in %APPDATA% as suggested
Delete any docker related keyys in registry (may be not necessary)
Then reinstalled it

And it solved the problem (but without hyperV removal it didn't work).

Upvotes: 0

Abhilash Ranjan

Reputation: 733

It happened due to local data corruption. You can check in VM log inside %appdata%\Docker. I was able to reset and restart by renaming setting.json and then restart the Docker desktop by deleting all the previous log folder and temp folder clean. If this does not help. Try to kill all the processes running in through the task manager

and then run Power shell in administrator mode and then shoot the command if you are using an older version of Lsmanager Restart-Service LxssManager.

Upvotes: 0

Itay Tur

Reputation: 1679

Didn't found the AppData folder in users[myUser] or anywhere. re-install solve it for me

Upvotes: 1

Jordan Gee

Reputation: 380

This happened to me after Docker Desktop upgrade to version 3.6.0 (67351), too. (Which was surprising, because it worked before the upgrade.)

Due to the help in the top answer right now, I went to the above settings directory: %appdata%\Docker, looked at the logs and deleted/renamed the file settings.json -> Docker Desktop started immediatelly ; there had been a process retrying in the background.

In the time before that, the backend.exe.log had been all "unmarshal" something something:

    settings.json: json: cannot unmarshal bool into Go struct field Content.proxyHttpMode of type string"
common/cmd/com.docker.backend/internal/settingsloader.GetSettings(0x0, 0x0, 0x0)

So, the above message 'tipped me off' as to where the actual error on start may be. Hmm...

Upvotes: 4

chintan bhatt

Reputation: 76

Go to C:\Users\asd\AppData\Local and delete Downloaded Installation directory.
C:\Users\asd\AppData\Roaming and delete Docker and Docker Desktop directory.

Then start docker.

Upvotes: 1

IDIR

Reputation: 360

Go to the directory C:\Users-------\AppData\Roaming\Docker and delete the file settings.json . Docker takes care of rewriting it at startup.

This manipulation solved the problem for me !

Upvotes: 22

Balaji

Reputation: 10887

Docker failed to initialize

C:\Users[USER]\AppData\Local\Docker

C:\Users[USER]\AppData\Roaming\Docker

C:\Users[USER]\AppData\Roaming\Docker Desktop

Once deleted above directory, I didn’t have to do anything else, Docker Desktop started booting up as normal.

Upvotes: 11

tmBlackCape

Reputation: 1724

Got the same issue and fixed it by deleting %appdata%\Docker as mentioned by Github User "tocklime"

(Original Source : https://github.com/docker/for-win/issues/3088)

Upvotes: 170

VivekDev

Reputation: 25389

For me deleting the folder %appdata%\Docker did not work.

Instead I had to run the following power shell command as admin.

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All

References.

My windows features with running docker desktop are as follows.

Upvotes: 3

Docker Failed to Initialize on Windows

Answers (24)

<tl;dr>

Related Questions