Docker Desktop fails to start in some cases due to an incorrect WSL command

[andreas-ateles]

• I have tried with the latest version of Docker Desktop
• I have tried disabling enabled experimental features Not applicable
• I have uploaded Diagnostics Not applicable
• Diagnostics ID: Impossible, Docker Desktop doesn't start

Expected behavior

Docker Desktop starts when executing it. The UI/tray icon is available.

Actual behavior

When Docker Desktop is starting it runs the command:

wsl.exe bash -ic "printenv KUBECONFIG"

And it just gets stuck there, never proceeding further. No UI or tray icon is ever shown.

Here's a screenshot of the process tree when this is happening:

The issue

The problem with the command is that bash is ran in interactive mode (the -i flag), while it's run as a non-interactive command/shell.
And anything needing interaction in ones .bashrc will just wait and hang since there is no way for the user to interact with it.

Solution

The -i flag to the bash command should be removed. As the shell is non-interactive, and should not be flagged as interactive.

Background

In my case I'm using keychain to automatically add SSH keys to WSL2. This asks for the key passphrase when bash starts interactively. So it (Docker Desktop in my case) just gets stuck there and is unable to continue. (As a workaround for this it's possible to add a timeout to the interactive command to kill it after some time, but it shouldn't be needed in the first place.)

kubernetes-client/javascript?

While researching the issue the only place that Google was able to find this command was in kubernetes-client/javascript.

So I was assuming that it's coming from there and opened an issue there. But this assumption could be wrong, and they might just be doing a similar thing.

Information

• Windows Version: 10 pro, x64
• Docker Desktop Version: 4.6.1
• WSL2
• Not virtualized Windows

[greglnye]

I have this same problem with Docker Desktop 4.7.0 (77141)
Since I don't use Kubernetes functionality, my workaround is to identify and kill (using sysinternals Process Explorer) the 'wsl.exe bash -ic "printenv KUBECONFIG"' process at which point the Docker Desktop icon appears in the tray and the GUI becomes available for use.
As a Docker Pro user, I have raised a support ticket for this.

[StefanScherer]

Thanks @andreas-ateles and @greglnye I finally found this public issue. Thanks for explaining and the linked ticket.
For now the workaround is to create an empty file in the windows users home directory .kube/config.
We're looking to either update the npm package or find another permanent solution.

[mat007]

Hi! We have just released Docker Desktop 4.9.0 including a fix for this issue.
Thanks!

[joshsleeper]

awesome, really glad to finally have this fix in @mat007.

for the curious, any chance of linking to the actual commit/PR that fixed the issue?

[mat007]

Sorry @joshsleeper, the code isn’t publicly available.

[joshsleeper]

Womp womp, that's a bummer. Thanks for clarifying though!

[brantac]

Docker Desktop is failing to start for me as well. When I click to open the app, it opens the app window, and then the status message goes from "Docker Desktop starting" to "Docker Desktop quit..." in a fews seconds, and it shuts down. This problem started after I updated the app this week, on June 28th.

Also, when I run docker version on Windows Powershell, the message I get is:

error during connect: This error may indicate that the docker daemon is not running.: Get "http://%2F%2F.%2Fpipe%2Fdocker_engine/v1.24/version": open //./pipe/docker_engine: The system cannot find the file specified.
Client:
 Cloud integration: v1.0.25
 Version:           20.10.16
 API version:       1.41
 Go version:        go1.17.10
 Git commit:        aa7e414
 Built:             Thu May 12 09:17:07 2022
 OS/Arch:           windows/amd64
 Context:           default
 Experimental:      true

I already tried some tips that I found, such as running & 'C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\DockerCli.exe' -SwitchDaemon, but it didn't fix the issue.

[docker-robott]

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