Error response from daemon: open \\.\pipe\docker_engine_linux: The system cannot find the file specified

Question

While I am trying to start with docker on my windows 10 machine it is returning the following error.

ERROR: open \.\pipe\docker_engine_linux: The system cannot find the file specified.

I found when I logon to my computer, the hyper VM could not run docker virtual machine automatically though my docker desktop is running. Once I start docker virtual machine on hyper VM and restart docker once again, it works okay. But this is not a permanent solution. Could I get some help please?

Jamnis

Restart Docker Desktop works for me on windows. – Peeved

Answer 1

Restarting Docker Desktop for Windows helped me. You can do that by right-click on tray icon and selecting restart.

Chagres

In my case, I got this error only the first time after I've installed Docker Desktop. In any case, restarting was the solution to the problem. – Yolanda

Answer 2

The same problem with Me. I am writing this command in PowerShell Run As Administrator. Switch Docker from Windows to Linux and write the command like this:

cd "C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker"

./DockerCli.exe -SwitchLinuxEngine

This is the Simple way to solve this.

Dilan

This works for me, and I would like to add I've got WSL running before I got Docker Desktop installed. – Confectionery

MY GOD. ./DockerCli.exe -SwitchLinuxEngine got me back up and running after 3 days of ripping my dreads out. win upgrade to 11 and countless reinstalled later, this was the magic command. – Saporous

Answer 3

Update 10 / 2022

I solved this issue by restarting WSL, as only restarting Docker was not solving it for me.

In my situation, Docker was running as expected before encountering this issue.

These are the steps I took

1. Close Docker Desktop
2. Open cmd and run wsl --shutdown
3. Start Docker Desktop and press Restart on the notification below
   (It should pop up in a few seconds)

Ibeam

This!!!! I thought I had tried everything. But this fixed it in the end after reboots and goodness knows what. – Notum

Yep, restarting the WSL helped in my case! :) – Tellurion

I did restart only docker and it did not fix the issue, but restarting wsl worked! – Backstitch

Answer 4

In my case, the reason for the error was even easier than the main answer ("close and open it again") suggests. Docker Desktop was just not running anymore!

When I hovered over the tray icon, it vanished.

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Further details:

Docker Desktop had crashed, or it was closed because of a forced update. I had this problem after updating Java runtime environment.

When I opened Docker Desktop then, an update ran, and I could not even choose between yes or no, running for at least 5 minutes with the tray icon only showing "Docker Desktop is starting". The menu had crashed as well.

Trimolecular

Thanks. Reverting the JAVA_PATH setting and it works for me. – Flagstad

@Flagstad Nice, that would mean that the Java update that I write about might indeed trigger the Docker Desktop crash. – Trimolecular

Answer 5

My Docker Desktop was sort of freezing and was not starting up. Just kept showing Starting... for ever. Any docker command in terminal was throwing same exception "Error response from daemon: open \.\pipe\docker_engine_linux:". I tried some options a mentioned above, didn't worked on Windows 10. I just went to Windows Services ( In search box type "services"). Look for "Docker Desktop Service". Stop and Start it once. Then try starting your Docker Desktop again. It came up back super fast.

Afterbirth

Answer 6

I am able to auto trigger docker VM start on Hyper V by enabling the following in setting :

While the error below error continuing till docker starts okay and containers are running okay.

ERROR: open .\pipe\docker_engine_linux: The system cannot find the file specified.

Jamnis

Answer 7

Tried a lot of things. Helped:

1. Close Docker.

2. Start Docker as administrator.

Henkel

Answer 8

Update Jan 2023

Follows up with @Michiel Pater's solution, in case wsl --shutdown hangs in your terminal, open task manager as administrator, find Windows Subsystem for Linux then kill it. After serveral seconds, press Restart from Docker Desktop notification

Jeremy

Answer 9

Try to add the folder with your project in Settings -> Resources -> File Sharing. And click the button Apply & Restart

Belay

Answer 10

Try running the below commands in the Powershell and start the docker

Net stop com.docker.service

And then

Net start com.docker.service

Sesquicarbonate

Answer 11

I was facing the same issue while installing docker on windows 10. Later I could resolve the issue by updating the Linux kernel. Go to this link and update the package for x64 machine https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10#step-4---download-the-linux-kernel-update-package

Dorser

Answer 12

One way of solving this problem is doing the following step again every time you open your pc:

# -------------------- enable the wsl for linux on windows ------------------- #
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

# ---------------------- enable virtual machine feature ---------------------- #
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

# ------------------------ set wsl as default version ------------------------ #
wsl --set-default-version 2

and then start docker desktop icon and docker engine will start without any porblem

Glasses

Answer 13

In my case Docker Desktop was running fine but when I run docker pull for window image where as I also set switch to window container as well But I face this error Error response from daemon: open \.\pipe\docker_engine_linux: The system cannot find the file specified

Finally I fixed it by running the below command in powershell as an administrative mode

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName $("Microsoft-Hyper-V", "Containers") -All

Venturesome

Answer 14

I was getting similar problem on window 10 so what i uninstall the verison 4.16 and install old version 4.13. From setting update of docker desktop i click on update to latest version and after it works Created all file that were missing earlier

Ski

Answer 15

In my case, only a clean re-installation helped unfortunately.

Caution: This will remove all local docker images and you'll have to rebuild them. Be aware that any files, any data in databases or data stored in REDIS services that "live" in your local docker containers are deleted by this approach. So you should consider it only if the other answers given to this questions do not work and you're able to restore the data from a backup!

The following steps give you a fresh, clean start with Docker:

1. Uninstall docker desktop via Windows
   "Programs and Features" > "Uninstall or change a program"
2. Delete the "Docker" folder in the %AppData% directory (which is usually "C:\Users\YOURPROFILE\AppData\Roaming"),
   and also ".docker" in C:\Users\YOURPROFILE (as suggested here)
3. Restart Windows
4. Download latest docker desktop from https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/ and install it (run "Docker Desktop Installer.exe" from Admin shell)

---

A few additional hints:

• It might not always be necessary to delete the folders (step 2), but it guarantees you start really with a fresh installation with factory settings
• During the installation Docker asks (and recommends) to enable WSL2. In my case, I found that was causing the troubles I had - so I installed it again with this option disabled (note while you can disable it in the docker settings that didn't help in my case, I really had to disable it during installation).
  Before I did that, Docker stopped working again the next day when I turned on my PC. I could not find out why WSL2 was blocking the start up of Docker, but that workaround helped me - using Hyper-V instead.
  Note that some docker images require WSL2. In that case you can re-enable it again via Docker's context menu's settings "General". Before you do that, check if you need to repare WSL2 (as this might prevent Docker from starting) - repair it, then enable WSL2 in Docker.

Aceves

Answer 16

For me opening Docker Desktop in Administrator Mode solved the issue

Cabochon

Answer 17

I have my cloudflare WARP running that was causing this issue I just toggled it off and it worked.

Surrey

Answer 18

I updated docker to the latest version. Error has gone.

Demerol

Answer 19

to solve this problem make sure you install one of the linux distribution like alpine or ubunto and that step alot of youtube vedio tutorial miss nowaday in 2022 and by the way this step is menthoned in the https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual and i mean here the step number 6 in the manual installation of windows subsystem for linux as short wsl => https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual

Glasses

As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please edit to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. – Grassplot

Answer 20

WSL 2 Installation was incomplete. After doing a 'restart' on Docker, it prompted me to get the Linux Kernel installed.

Anthropogeography

This does not really answer the question. If you have a different question, you can ask it by clicking Ask Question. To get notified when this question gets new answers, you can follow this question. Once you have enough reputation, you can also add a bounty to draw more attention to this question. - From Review – Genvieve

Answer 21

This message appeared while using IntelliJ service. Solutions for me was that Docker installed in windows should also be running and showing list of container. Once Docker desktop app shows container list. This docker was connected to intellij and error message was gone.

Lachrymatory

Answer 22

Solution For:

1. Docker forever in "Docker is starting.." at Windows task
2. Docker desktop is starting error
3. Docker "unable to calculate image disk size"
4. unable to calculate disk size docker
5. failed to ping VM diagnosticsd with error:

Get "http://ipc/ping": open \.\pipe\dockerDiagnosticd: The system cannot find the file specified.

The same problem with Me in 2023. I am writing this command in PowerShell Run As Administrator. Switch Docker from Windows to Linux and write the command like this:

cd "C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker"

./DockerCli.exe -SwitchLinuxEngine

This is the simplest and best way to solve this.

Norwood

Answer 23

Purging data of HYPER-V, WSL 2 and Windows Containers did the trick for me. Purge data section is in troubleshooting.

Etz

Warning: this will remove all of your containers and images! – Jeremy

Answer 24

I had the same issue ,I uninstalled the latest version and Installed Docker desktop 4.13, my problem is solved. here is the download link :

https://desktop.docker.com/win/main/amd64/89412/Docker%20Desktop%20Installer.exe

Warlock

Answer 25

Error is resolved with latest Docker for Windows release 4.16.3 from 30. of January 2023.

Check here for details.

Shull

Answer 26

I had to try a combination of the suggestions listed here. Also, I couldn't shutdown Docker Desktop. Powershell running as admin:

cd "C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker"
./DockerCli.exe -SwitchLinuxEngine

wsl --shutdown

Get-Process *docker* | Stop-Process

Then I started everything back up and it came to life.

Covetous

Answer 27

After a ton of searching and lots of uninstalls / reinstalls of Docker and WSL, this is the fix that worked for me:

1. Navigate to %APPDATA%/Roaming/Docker
2. Open the settings.json file
3. Update the following lines:

"integratedWslDistros" : [ ]
"enableIntegrationWithDefaultWslDistro" : false,

Link to the original solution I found:

• https://forums.docker.com/t/win10-a-timeout-occured-while-waiting-for-a-wsl-integration/135211/4

Darbies

Answer 28

In my case it has been a line ending issue.

Some time ago I struggled with problems because of shellscripts containing CRLF.

So I've added "autocrlf=false" to .git/config in the project.

Later I manually set LF in Dockerfiles and yml because I thought "should be so".

This also resulted in not found / EOF messages for docker_engine in my Docker Desktop (Windows) and setting CRLF again in these files fixed the issue.

Ostensible

Answer 29

Error response from daemon: open \\.\pipe\docker_engine_linux: Access is denied

The error which I got is bit different [ "Access is denied" ] when I tried to run my tests on Linux docker container on Windows 11 using Github actions's self hosted runner.

I tried all answers mentioned above but problem is not solved. But when I changed 'Github Action Runner' Services log on permission from 'This Account' to 'Local Account' problem is resolved. Problem was Github Actions was unable to access docker services from local Github runner.

Gastrocnemius

Answer 30

Happened to me today after installing docker desktop on windows 11 pro. Restarting did not help. Running the console in admin mode or starting the service also did not help.

What fixed it was to launch the docker application, accept terms and letting it complete setup (sets up services?). Then the console commands worked.

Redman

Answer 31

ERROR: C:\Users\user1>docker run hello-world docker: Error response from daemon: open \.\pipe\docker_engine_linux: The system cannot find the file specified. See 'docker run --help'.

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solution:

use this command => cd "C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker"

Erasure

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