It can be a problem if /var/lib/docker is on a network filesystem, but I don’t think the error would be “too many symbolic links”
Some people on the net could solve similar issues by cleaning up the overlay filesystem. You can try docker system prune or docker image prune. If it is not a problem for you, you could try to restart the Docker daemon. I would not do it in production unless there is no other way.
The strange thing for me in this error message is that you get this message when you try to pull an image. I know there are some symbolic links in /var/lib/docker/overlay2/l but those links are next to each other. It should not be a problem. “Too many levels” could be when you have a symbolic link pointing to itself like and something tries to resolve it:
mkdir test
cd test
ln -s mylink mylink
find -L -xtype l
I didn’t know it, so I had to look for the message. Here is the source:
My example is a little shorter but the point is the same. I don’t know why it happens on pulling images, but my guess is that sometimes you tried to pull an image, stopped it but a symbolic link was created and now it tries to create the same symbolic link, but the filesystem in /var/lib/docker is broken. Docker also tries to clean itself on start, if I am not mistaken, so this is why I think that running docker system prune, docker image prune and restarting Docker could help.
Actually, if I think about it again, when the network is slow, it might cause Docker to fail and retry on a broken filesystem. Of course, I am just guessing like a gambler.