Docker container keeps restarting

The purpose of this article is to detail how to recover from a docker container that keeps restarting.

So, you have built a new docker container and are attempting to run it. The container builds just fine, but you notice that on startup it isn’t available. You decide to run the following command to show what docker containers are running.

docker ps -a

The result for the container that isn’t starting properly is:

Restarting (127) x seconds ago

You check time and time again and you continue to see the same message, but perhaps with a different number of seconds. The restart appears to be in a loop, which it is, but it is never able to successfully start. This could be for any number of reasons so you will have to analyze the docker logs to figure out what the problem actually is. It’s unlikely that the problem is with docker itself, but rather with the application or process you are attempting to run in your container. To display the logs that should show you what the problem is run the following command:

docker logs --tail 50 --follow --timestamps mediawiki_web_1

This will only get you to the next phase of troubleshooting the application or process you are trying to run, but after fixing the problem your docker container should successfully start and run.

Conclusion

This article has demonstrated how to trouble shoot when you have a docker container that keeps restarting. Leave us a comment if you have any questions and please check out our other posts!