Please help!
An hour ago I upgraded the desktop version to v4.44.0.
After launching the new version, no containers, no images, no volumes, no networks. All gone
I remember that on the upgrade of 4.36 (was it decemberā24? canāt tell) we also had problems and at some upgrade we also lost all containers. I canāt recall now if the 4.36 is the one that lost the containers and I also canāt recall how we finally solved it. Can it be ārelabeling a virtual diskā or so?
In the meantime, when that happened, I think someone compiled some desktop intermediate version and installing that version worked fine until the proper release was released, but I could not assure that, itās just āit seems to meā. In fact I have this file in my downloads folder: āDocker Desktop Installer - v4.36-dev-build - downloaded 2024-12dec-02.exeā
The thing is I canāt work until this works again.
The UI just works, but no data is in there. This is from my WSL:
xavi@msi-laptop:/files/repos$ ls -ld /var/lib/dock*
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 16 2020 /var/lib/docker-desktop
xavi@msi-laptop:/files/repos$ ls -la /var/lib/docker-desktop/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 16 2020 .
drwxr-xr-x 38 root root 4096 Jan 2 2021 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Aug 8 18:13 mounts.data
I want my old containers up and running. I know there must be somewhere, but I donāt know where.
Whatās the next step I should take?
FOLLOWUP HERE:
opened 12:08PM - 08 Aug 25 UTC
status/acknowledged
area/WSL2
version/4.44.0
### Description
Hi,
I am experiencing this problem for the first time, after hā¦ aving updated Docker Desktop countless times, I wonder if anybody ran into the same issue.
After 4.44.0 all my containers and images have disappeared from CLI and GUI Docker tools.
```
~ āÆ docker images
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE
~ āÆ docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
```
<img width="1085" height="556" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/92b704e7-d146-452d-88d8-12931152dd1f" />
This could be a disaster but luckily for me the problem is mostly the annoyance of having to recreate my setup.
I have looked a bit into what happened and I have found out that I don't have anymore the companion docker-desktop-data WSL2 distro which was physically storing all the images/containers/volumes.
I have had Docker Desktop since quite some time and although I have now found out that the additional docker-desktop-data WSL2 distro has been deprecated, in my case at each update Docker was still keeping things as they were.
When I was ready to start rebuilding my images, I have realized that the data vhdx of the new docker distro is still massive, and after some googling, I have realized that I still have all the old data, but this time instead of being in a separate distro, it is mounted as an external drive to the docker-desktop distro, in `/mnt/docker-desktop-disk` .
<img width="501" height="929" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/042b98c1-2264-4900-84eb-0bcb946fcf28" />
As far as I have understood, this should be the same path in which the new docker desktop data should be mounted, but I guess with a different filesystem tree, since it won't be anymore a full WSL2 distro drive with the whole Linux/Unix conventional directory layout (/etc, /bin/, ... )
My guess is that the latest update contained some sort of migration script for the oldest installations with the additional WSL2 distro, but something must have gone wrong.
What should I do? Is there a way or is it worth to recover the data so that I can use it with the latest Docker Desktop?
### Reproduce
Update Docker Desktop for Windows from 4.43.2 to 4.44.0.
The installation was with the two WSL2 distros, docker-desktop and docker-desktop-data.
### Expected behavior
_No response_
### docker version
```bash
~ āÆ docker version
Client:
Version: 28.3.2
API version: 1.51
Go version: go1.24.5
Git commit: 578ccf6
Built: Wed Jul 9 16:12:31 2025
OS/Arch: windows/amd64
Context: desktop-linux
Server: Docker Desktop 4.44.0 (201307)
Engine:
Version: 28.3.2
API version: 1.51 (minimum version 1.24)
Go version: go1.24.5
Git commit: e77ff99
Built: Wed Jul 9 16:13:55 2025
OS/Arch: linux/amd64
Experimental: false
containerd:
Version: 1.7.27
GitCommit: 05044ec0a9a75232cad458027ca83437aae3f4da
runc:
Version: 1.2.5
GitCommit: v1.2.5-0-g59923ef
docker-init:
Version: 0.19.0
GitCommit: de40ad0
```
### docker info
```bash
~ āÆ docker info
Client:
Version: 28.3.2
Context: desktop-linux
Debug Mode: false
Plugins:
ai: Docker AI Agent - Ask Gordon (Docker Inc.)
Version: v1.9.11
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-ai.exe
buildx: Docker Buildx (Docker Inc.)
Version: v0.26.1-desktop.1
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-buildx.exe
cloud: Docker Cloud (Docker Inc.)
Version: v0.4.11
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-cloud.exe
compose: Docker Compose (Docker Inc.)
Version: v2.39.1-desktop.1
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-compose.exe
debug: Get a shell into any image or container (Docker Inc.)
Version: 0.0.42
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-debug.exe
desktop: Docker Desktop commands (Docker Inc.)
Version: v0.2.0
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-desktop.exe
extension: Manages Docker extensions (Docker Inc.)
Version: v0.2.29
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-extension.exe
init: Creates Docker-related starter files for your project (Docker Inc.)
Version: v1.4.0
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-init.exe
mcp: Docker MCP Plugin (Docker Inc.)
Version: v0.13.0
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-mcp.exe
model: Docker Model Runner (EXPERIMENTAL) (Docker Inc.)
Version: v0.1.36
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-model.exe
sbom: View the packaged-based Software Bill Of Materials (SBOM) for an image (Anchore Inc.)
Version: 0.6.0
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-sbom.exe
scout: Docker Scout (Docker Inc.)
Version: v1.18.2
Path: C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-scout.exe
WARNING: Plugin "C:\\Users\\a\\.docker\\cli-plugins\\docker-feedback.exe" is not valid: failed to fetch metadata: fork/exec C:\Users\a\.docker\cli-plugins\docker-feedback.exe: The system cannot find the file specified.
Server:
Containers: 0
Running: 0
Paused: 0
Stopped: 0
Images: 0
Server Version: 28.3.2
Storage Driver: overlay2
Backing Filesystem: extfs
Supports d_type: true
Using metacopy: false
Native Overlay Diff: true
userxattr: false
Logging Driver: json-file
Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
Cgroup Version: 2
Plugins:
Volume: local
Network: bridge host ipvlan macvlan null overlay
Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file local splunk syslog
CDI spec directories:
/etc/cdi
/var/run/cdi
Discovered Devices:
cdi: docker.com/gpu=webgpu
Swarm: inactive
Runtimes: io.containerd.runc.v2 nvidia runc
Default Runtime: runc
Init Binary: docker-init
containerd version: 05044ec0a9a75232cad458027ca83437aae3f4da
runc version: v1.2.5-0-g59923ef
init version: de40ad0
Security Options:
seccomp
Profile: builtin
cgroupns
Kernel Version: 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2
Operating System: Docker Desktop
OSType: linux
Architecture: x86_64
CPUs: 16
Total Memory: 3.822GiB
Name: docker-desktop
ID: d7802e53-667c-4f42-9fb0-245cc47cd479
Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
Debug Mode: false
HTTP Proxy: http.docker.internal:3128
HTTPS Proxy: http.docker.internal:3128
No Proxy: hubproxy.docker.internal
Labels:
com.docker.desktop.address=npipe://\\.\pipe\docker_cli
Experimental: false
Insecure Registries:
hubproxy.docker.internal:5555
::1/128
127.0.0.0/8
Live Restore Enabled: false
WARNING: DOCKER_INSECURE_NO_IPTABLES_RAW is set
```
### Diagnostics ID
0EC9025D-5D9B-4328-BC2B-51EE8DDFE199/20250808120538
### Additional Info
_No response_
Letās close this topic in favour of the github conversation. Keeping this for reference only, for people looking for a solution to the same problem and searching here.
2 Likes
With my previous experience, you have to recreate all of them.
bluepuma77
August 13, 2025, 11:09pm
5
Why do you state that? It seems they created a bugfixed version now and it just works as before.
Thanks for that This will really helpful. After that I havenāt tried to upgrade.
system
September 13, 2025, 5:09am
7
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