Container with volume type: image and subpath fails to start after dockerd restart #50999
Description
Description
Here is a simple docker compose with an image volume with a subpath. After a restart of dockerd (e.g. due to a system reboot) these containers fail to start.
In the journal we see
level=error msg="failed to start container" container=4a85b4a7dd1024f27ce2f6b1784fd0580d914ed6a9f09ae15032a21f8d5cacb8 error="cannot access path /var/lib/docker/overlay2/1c3e9bc58352ab72e892f188f5c7701e62093e2e8b67bd975cdcb6574d69d5b6/merged/usr: lstat /var/lib/docker/overlay2/1c3e9bc58352ab72e892f188f5c7701e62093e2e8b67bd975cdcb6574d69d5b6/merged/usr: no such file or directory"
docker compose up fails with
Error response from daemon: cannot access path /var/lib/docker/overlay2/1c3e9bc58352ab72e892f188f5c7701e62093e2e8b67bd975cdcb6574d69d5b6/merged/usr: lstat /var/lib/docker/overlay2/1c3e9bc58352ab72e892f188f5c7701e62093e2e8b67bd975cdcb6574d69d5b6/merged/usr: no such file or directory
The issue can be resolved with a new container (down and up).
Reproduce
Note: the image.subpath is required to trigger this bug.
docker-compose.yml
services:
nix:
restart: unless-stopped
init: true
volumes:
- type: image
source: alpine
target: /image/usr
image:
subpath: usr
image: alpine
command: "sh -c 'while : ; do sleep 3; done'"up it and then restart docker systemctl restart docker.
Expected behavior
Container starts normally after docker restart.
docker version
Client: Docker Engine - Community
Version: 28.4.0
API version: 1.51
Go version: go1.24.7
Git commit: d8eb465
Built: Wed Sep 3 21:00:35 2025
OS/Arch: linux/amd64
Context: default
Server: Docker Engine - Community
Engine:
Version: 28.4.0
API version: 1.51 (minimum version 1.24)
Go version: go1.24.7
Git commit: 249d679
Built: Wed Sep 3 20:57:19 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: de40ad0docker info
Client: Docker Engine - Community
Version: 28.4.0
Context: default
Debug Mode: false
Plugins:
buildx: Docker Buildx (Docker Inc.)
Version: v0.27.0
Path: /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx
compose: Docker Compose (Docker Inc.)
Version: v2.39.2
Path: /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose
Server:
Containers: 17
Running: 15
Paused: 0
Stopped: 2
Images: 208
Server Version: 28.4.0
Storage Driver: overlay2
Backing Filesystem: xfs
Supports d_type: true
Using metacopy: false
Native Overlay Diff: true
userxattr: false
Logging Driver: json-file
Cgroup Driver: systemd
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
Swarm: inactive
Runtimes: io.containerd.runc.v2 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: 5.14.0-570.23.1.el9_6.x86_64
Operating System: Rocky Linux 9.6 (Blue Onyx)
OSType: linux
Architecture: x86_64
CPUs: 4
Total Memory: 7.645GiB
Name: ***
ID: c49db0fa-5dd5-4e74-8d9e-659c43e20bce
Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
Debug Mode: false
Experimental: false
Insecure Registries:
::1/128
127.0.0.0/8
Registry Mirrors:
https://***/
Live Restore Enabled: false
Default Address Pools:
Base: 172.17.0.0/16, Size: 24Additional Info
No response