After trying to start docker (which hangs) a systemctl status docker.service returns the following:
○ docker.service - Docker Application Container Engine
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/docker.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d
└─override.conf
Active: inactive (dead) (Result: exit-code) since Sat 2026-03-21 18:58:56 CDT; 20min ago
TriggeredBy: ● docker.socket
Docs: https://docs.docker.com
Main PID: 283958 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
CPU: 66ms
Mar 21 18:58:56 Sabea8 systemd[1]: docker.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 54.
Mar 21 18:58:56 Sabea8 systemd[1]: Stopped Docker Application Container Engine.
ps aux shows many “/usr/bin/docker-proxy” processes running and most of the docker web sites are reachable (pi-hone, checkmk, docview but casaos will not work, nor uptime kuma). This all started because I tried to install N.O.M.A.D. It needed “docker compose” to run and I attempted the install. At that point everything broke.
It is indeed confusing that the docker service is inactive (=it should start and keep the docker engine running), while at the same time docker info is still able to interact with the docker engine. This shouldn’t be possible.
We need the output of following commands to get a better understanding:
dpkg -l 'docker*' | grep '^ii'
snap list docker
Restart the docker daemon and take a look at the logs:
sudo systemctl restart docker
# wait less that 120 seconds
sudo journalctl -xu docker.service --since "2 minutes ago"
The 2 minutes are just a suggestion. You can adjust it to whatever is necessary.
You will want to look at a cycle that starts with Starting Docker Application Container Engine..." and ends with Stopped Docker Application Container Engine.. Note: Not every level="error" entry will be relevant to the problem.
snap list docker
ii docker-buildx-plugin 0.31.1-1~ubuntu.22.04~jammy amd64 Docker Buildx plugin extends build capabilities with BuildKit.
ii docker-ce-cli 5:29.3.0-1~ubuntu.22.04~jammy amd64 Docker CLI: the open-source application container engine
ii docker-ce-rootless-extras 5:29.3.0-1~ubuntu.22.04~jammy amd64 Rootless support for Docker.
ii docker-compose 1.29.2-1 all define and run multi-container Docker applications with YAML
ii docker-compose-plugin 5.1.1-1~ubuntu.22.04~jammy amd64 Docker Compose (V2) plugin for the Docker CLI.
error: no matching snaps installed
Here’s the jouralctl output after a docker restart (note it rand for about 4 minutes) :
sudo systemctl restart docker
# wait less that 120 seconds
sudo journalctl -xu docker.service --since "2 minutes ago"
Job for docker.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status docker.service" and "journalctl -xeu docker.service" for details.
Mar 22 09:56:54 Sabea8 systemd[1]: Starting Docker Application Container Engine...
░░ Subject: A start job for unit docker.service has begun execution
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: http://www.ubuntu.com/support
░░
░░ A start job for unit docker.service has begun execution.
░░
░░ The job identifier is 1725364.
Mar 22 09:56:54 Sabea8 dockerd[1287953]: time="2026-03-22T09:56:54.306282490-05:00" level=info msg="Starting up"
Mar 22 09:56:54 Sabea8 dockerd[1287953]: time="2026-03-22T09:56:54.306860424-05:00" level=info msg="Daemon shutdown complete" error="failed to start daemon, ensure docker is>
Mar 22 09:56:54 Sabea8 dockerd[1287953]: failed to start daemon, ensure docker is not running or delete /var/run/docker.pid: process with PID 70213 is still running
Mar 22 09:56:54 Sabea8 systemd[1]: docker.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
░░ Subject: Unit process exited
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: http://www.ubuntu.com/support
░░
░░ An ExecStart= process belonging to unit docker.service has exited.
░░
░░ The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 1.
Mar 22 09:56:54 Sabea8 systemd[1]: docker.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
░░ Subject: Unit failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: http://www.ubuntu.com/support
░░
░░ The unit docker.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 22 09:56:54 Sabea8 systemd[1]: Failed to start Docker Application Container Engine.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit docker.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: http://www.ubuntu.com/support
░░
░░ A start job for unit docker.service has finished with a failure.
░░
░░ The job identifier is 1725364 and the job result is failed.
After the issue I had with attempting to install N.O.M.A.D. I installed “docker compose” using a curl command
sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker-ce docker-ce-cli docker-compose-plugin
docker compose version
Docker Compose version v5.0.2
It was right after that the docker problem occurred.
Do you mean it just installing docker-compose broke Docker without running any other command like docker compose up -d?
The NOMAD you linked has an installer that installs Docker CE using the “convenience script”
So you shouldn’t even need to install it separately unless you already had Docker CE installed without compose.
If you have no other Docker daemon that even the previously recommended commands couldn’t show, it look like the daemon was killed without deleting the pid file and now sicne it contains the previous instance’s ID, the new instance cannot start until you delete the old pid file.
I am still with original problem, docker will not start (see screen capture above). docker seems to be hanging on docker.socket and will not start which is what I interrupt the green half-circle next to TriggeredBy to mean.
Please try what the output suggest: journalctl -xeu docker.service (of course after restarting the docker service, and with a useful --since duration).
There must be a reason the daemon is terminating during start.
The working docker info output, made me suspicious whether there is a double installation (1x via apt, 1x via snap). It’s not the case.
Update: I just looked up, what -e actually does, hoping it would be related to errors, but it is not. It is just to jump at the end of the page.
You can create the file /etc/docker/daemon.json with this content (if it doesn’t exist on your system already):
{
"debug": "true"
}
Then restart the docker service. It should provide more details now.
I have solved the issue after a marathon session with chatGPT. I am sorting through the chat dialog to concisely detail what the issue was and how it was solved. If and can ID’s the solution correctly I’ll post it here. I guess AI has some uses after all.
I appreciate the offer to share the solution! It will probably help others using the N.O.M.A.D installer as well!
Please do me a favor and do not share the AI generated output directly, because we have a strict forum policy against it. We generally believe that GenAI is useful, but want to have posts with real user experience in this forum, rather than a shotgun load of unfiltered suggestions of an AI
I was running Docker on Ubuntu 20.4, and after attempting an install of N.O.M.A.D. which wanted "docker compose(w/o the dash. After thinking I’d installed “docker compose” the docker.service would not start. When I ran “systemctl start docker” or restarted docker, it would hang or fail with repeated restart attempts.
I verified that Docker itself was installed correctly, but the service would not come up under systemd. To isolate the problem, I ran the daemon manually using:
That worked—Docker and initialized. This proved the Docker engine itself was fine.
The root cause was the default systemd configuration had been changed and was using:
-H fd://
Type=notify
docker.socket
That socket-activation / notify setup was broken and causing the service to hang or fail. I bypassed the broken systemd configuration and created my own service that starts Docker directly:
It is the cli plugin, which is provided by the package docker-compose-plugin
I missed that you have the package docker-compose (=v1) installed as well, please remove it as it is deprecated for more than three years now. It is not 100% compatible with latest docker versions.
