“Docker Desktop is stuck on ‘Engine starting’ and never finishes loading. The Docker Engine fails to initialize on startup.”
A lot more context is needed if you want to get help.
Is that on Windows, MacOS, Linux? Which version?
Please share which OS and Version?
did you try installing latest docker desktop version ?
I have the very same issue.
OS: Windows 11 Enterprise with all recent updates
Docker version: v4.75.0
I’ve reinstalled, done factory reset, deleted folders in AppData and reinstalled again.
Same error no matter what I do. I’ve been using Docker for many years, but it seems that something in the recent upgrades (either Windows or Docker) made it failing on startup.
Event Viewer shows no errors at all. I can’t see any error message telling me what is wrong.
How can this be troubleshooted?
Have you checked docker desktop logs?
The log folder is located in ${env:LOCALAPPDATA}\Docker\log (PowerShell syntax). / %LOCALAPPDATA%\Docker\log (cmd syntax, can be used in File Explorer as well).
Did you check if WSL is generally working by starting another distribution?
OK, that shows something at least…
com.docker.backend.exe.log repeats this over and over:
[2026-05-31T19:34:25.904697000Z][com.docker.backend.exe.otelmgr][W] still waiting to toggle VM Otel collector settings in the VM after 3m0.1948764s: cannot toggle VM OTel collector, backend is not running
[2026-05-31T19:34:25.989337400Z][com.docker.backend.exe.hostsinjector] unable to watch: will retry: %!s()
[2026-05-31T19:34:26.991780500Z][com.docker.backend.exe.hostsinjector] unable to watch: will retry: %!s()
[2026-05-31T19:34:27.993634800Z][com.docker.backend.exe.hostsinjector] unable to watch: will retry: %!s()
[2026-05-31T19:34:28.994804100Z][com.docker.backend.exe.hostsinjector] unable to watch: will retry: %!s()
[2026-05-31T19:34:29.070559200Z][com.docker.backend.exe.apiproxy] still waiting for the engine to respond to _ping after 2m50.9303341s: HTTP 500:
[2026-05-31T19:34:30.021279700Z][com.docker.backend.exe.hostsinjector] unable to watch: will retry: %!s()
[2026-05-31T19:34:31.022505600Z][com.docker.backend.exe.hostsinjector] unable to watch: will retry: %!s()[2026-05-31T19:38:50.601852100Z][com.docker.backend.exe.apiproxy] still waiting for the engine to respond to _ping after 7m12.4598748s: HTTP 500:
[2026-05-31T19:38:51.259697000Z][com.docker.backend.exe.hostsinjector] unable to watch: will retry: %!s()
And when I run
wsl --list --verbose
it shows this:
And I can run “wsl” to get into the filesystem of docker-desktop and list the files there. So the wsl itself seems to work, right?
OK, after all reinstalling and cleaning up (using both factory reset and purge) without success I went into failsafe mode to delete all docker folders I could find. Rebooted again and reinstalled. Now it could finally start Docker Desktop on my Windows 11 Enterprise machine. 
However, that joy was shortlived. When I tried to create some container for Business Central it complained that I wasn’t running Windows Containers:
When I right click on the taskbar icon for Docker there is no option to switch to Windows containers and when I try to switch on command line I get this:
PS C:\dev\Git\build_d365bcaddon\Jenkins_scripts> & ‘C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\DockerCli.exe’ -SwitchWindowsEngine
switching to windows engine: windows containers have been disabled for this installation
I’ve read that you need Pro or Enterprise version of Windows 11 to get the option to use Windows Containers, but as you can see in the screendump above it has identified my machine as
Host is Microsoft Windows 11 Enterprise - 10.0.26200.8390
Any idea what is wrong???
The logs have not really been helpful. Since the docker-desktop distribution is running, it is safe to say WSL is running.
My last laptop had Windows 11 Enterprise and ran Docker Desktop without any issues for almost 2 years (and probably would still do if the laptop wasn’t bricked).
Not about Windows container: you need to specifically configure it by selecting “Switch to Windows containers” from the context menu of the Docker Desktop system tray icon. Windows Container indeed require the Pro or Enterprise version.