docker: Error response from daemon: grpc: the connection is unavailable

Question

Anyone have any idea what's causing this error? Is it going to be something to do with my network settings?

(bit of a noob on networking front, please feel free to comment and point me in the right direction for relevant data)

Get it when trying to do:

• any docker run commands
• any docker build with package updates (e.g RUN apk update)

Specs:

• Docker version 1.13.0, build 78d1802
• openSUSE Tumbleweed 20170505

Testing issue

Tried running the following containers to no avail:

• Redis:latest
• alpine:latest
• python:3.4.6
• python:latest
• hello-world

Edit:

Docker service running fine - systemctrl status docker returns:

docker.service - Docker Application Container Engine
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/docker.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Wed 2017-05-17 16:21:18 BST; 2 days ago

From docker inspect, containers are exiting with:

• Exitcode 128
• "Error": "grpc: the connection is unavailable"

Answer 1

Fixed!

Ran systemctl restart docker

No idea what the problem was...

Answer 2

For history: another possible reason is that on older versions docker containers fail to start due to corrupted events.log (/var/run/docker/libcontainerd/containerd/events.log), removing the file fixes the issue. See containerd#1699 for more details.