I am using Docker Desktop on Windows leveraging WSL Ubuntu. I recently tried to move all my wsl images to a different hard drive and free up some space on my system drive. After doing so and booting up Docker, everything seemed to work fine, except now I am unable to access my containers via my LAN ip or the 127.0.0.1 address, only localhost works. Well, technically not “unable” it does resolve but takes 5 min or more. Please help, I have no idea how to troubleshoot this and have been at this for the past 3 days. 
Looks like you are not alone
Oh wow, yea… exact same issue.
I am on Win 10 and there was an update my PC did on the day this issue was noticed which was 10/15/2025. I just tried and unfortunately I cannot roll back before the 10/15/2025 update 
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I do think this is related to some weird behavior from WSL. It doesn’t sound like I’m not going to be able to fix this unless Windows does and given I’m on a deprecated version they will likely not help me. We will see, I did file a ticket on github.
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Same issue. Everything was working well until October 18, 2025. I’m on Windows 11. Assuming it was related to KB5066835?
I faced the same issue, and I have fixed it by performing the following steps. I hope this will help you to fix your issue.
This usually happens because WSL networking or Docker’s internal NAT gets misconfigured during the move. Here’s how you can troubleshoot and fix it step by step.
Step 1. Verify WSL and Docker are running properly
Open PowerShell and run:
wsl --list --verbose
You should see “docker-desktop”, “docker-desktop-data”, and your main Linux distro listed as running with version 2. If any of them show version 1 or are stopped, fix it with:
wsl --set-default-version 2
wsl --set-version Ubuntu 2
wsl --set-version docker-desktop 2
Then restart Docker Desktop.
Step 2. Check your container port bindings
Run:
docker ps
Look at the “PORTS” column. You should see something like “0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp”. If it shows “127.0.0.1:8080->80/tcp”, it means the container is bound only to localhost.
Update your Docker run command or docker-compose file to use:
ports:
- “0.0.0.0:8080:80”
Then restart the container.
Step 3. Test access
Try reaching your container with:
curl http://localhost:8080
curl http://127.0.0.1:8080
curl http://<your_lan_ip>:8080
If localhost works but the other two are slow or timeout, continue below.
Step 4. Reset Windows network stack
Run PowerShell as Administrator and execute:
netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset
Reboot your system after this.
Step 5. Fix DNS and IPv6 inside WSL
In WSL, run:
sudo rm /etc/resolv.conf
echo “nameserver 8.8.8.8” | sudo tee /etc/resolv.conf
sudo chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf
To disable IPv6 inside WSL:
sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf
Add this line at the end:
net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
Save the file and apply it with:
sudo sysctl -p
Then shut down and restart WSL:
wsl --shutdown
Step 6. Rebuild Docker’s network configuration
Inside WSL:
sudo service docker stop
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker/network
sudo service docker start
This forces Docker to recreate its network bridge and routes.
Step 7. Recreate the WSL network adapter in Windows
Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:
Stop-Service com.docker.service
Get-HNSNetwork | Remove-HNSNetwork
Start-Service com.docker.service
Then restart Docker Desktop. This rebuilds the “vEthernet (WSL)” and “DockerNAT” adapters.
Step 8. Test again
After all steps, test again using your LAN IP and 127.0.0.1. In most cases, the delay disappears and both addresses work correctly again.
If the issue persists, the move process might have broken symbolic links or permissions. Export and re-import your WSL instances back to the default location to confirm:
wsl --export docker-desktop docker.tar
wsl --unregister docker-desktop
wsl --import docker-desktop “C:\wsl\docker-desktop” docker.tar --version 2
Repeat for “docker-desktop-data”.
Please let me know if you are still receiving the same error. I will check and share another solution here.
Nick R
Cloud Team Lead
AccuWeb.Cloud
Installed the v4.49.0 docker desktop update this morning and all is right in the world again.
Wow, thanks for the detailed instructions!
Unfortunately, I had to go off and try and mess with this and idk what it was I did but I’m having to deal with an issue with my Hyper V switch before I can mess with my WSL again. Ended up creating another post on StackExchange.
Will definitely circle back to this and let you know if it works for me or not.
Thank you for commenting, I failed to mention I am using Windows 10.
Seems like an unfortunate coincidence that I had an update to my Windows on Oct 15, which was around the same time they released an update to Windows 11 that caused this bug. I’m unsure if mine is related to the same bug but I’ll find out as soon as I fix my other issue first.
You won’t like this one:
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Hi All,
Thanks for the input! I believe I had some corrupted files/registries and ended up reinstalling Windows.
I appreciate everyone’s input!