Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at tcp://docker:2375. Is the docker daemon running? in docker push via Gitlab CI

Question

In Gitlab CI, when I want to push my image, I get:

Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at tcp://docker:2375. Is the docker daemon running?

Here is the code:

docker-push:
  stage: publish
  image: docker:stable
  services:
    - docker:dind
  before_script:
    - *inject-gopath
    - docker login -u gitlab-ci-token -p $GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN $REGISTRY_URL
    # $CI_BUILD_TOKEN
  script:
    - docker build --build-arg GITLAB_TOKEN=${GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN} --target=prod -t $REGISTRY_PACKAGE_API_NAME:$CI_BUILD_ID .
    - docker build --build-arg GITLAB_TOKEN=${GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN} --target=prod -t $REGISTRY_PACKAGE_API_NAME:latest .
    - docker push $REGISTRY_PACKAGE_API_NAME:$CI_BUILD_ID
    - docker push $REGISTRY_PACKAGE_API_NAME:latest

Here is the output:

Pulling docker image docker:stable ...
Using docker image sha256:23fb2c9b38b59433ea1913eafa12d2e15651ca0d08819dc7067d27d8f92e0428 for docker:stable ...
Running on runner-wmKFtEwx-project-7124308-concurrent-0 via ubuntu...
Fetching changes...
Removing release/
HEAD is now at 9c4894a Merge branch '5-supprimer-les-threads' into 'master'
Checking out 9c4894af as master...
Skipping Git submodules setup
Downloading artifacts for build (324707453)...
Downloading artifacts from coordinator... ok        id=324707453 responseStatus=200 OK token=SVLY__Jy
$ mkdir -p $(dirname ${PACKAGE_PATH}) && ln -s ${CI_PROJECT_DIR} ${PACKAGE_PATH} && cd ${PACKAGE_PATH}
$ docker login -u gitlab-ci-token -p $GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN $REGISTRY_URL
WARNING! Using --password via the CLI is insecure. Use --password-stdin.
WARNING! Your password will be stored unencrypted in /root/.docker/config.json.
Configure a credential helper to remove this warning. See
https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/login/#credentials-store

Login Succeeded
$ docker build --build-arg GITLAB_TOKEN=${GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN} --target=prod -t $REGISTRY_PACKAGE_API_NAME:$CI_BUILD_ID .
Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at tcp://docker:2375. Is the docker daemon running?
ERROR: Job failed: exit code 1

Weird thing is that I am in the image docker-stable, so I should have docker available, and previous step docker login is working well...

Is it a bug from Gitlab, or something I am doing wrong ?

PD: I am using Gitlab.com

PD2: I can push the image manually without any issue

Answer 1

As per comment it is just a GitLab problem. There is no guarantee, with a free runner, that it will always work. In this case the docker deamon is not available so your build will keep failing until the runner is restarted when GitLab detects the error.

Notice this is my assumption given that often the error comes and then after a few hours it is gone. As you can see also my Gitlab Forums Thread received no reply from anyone so I am afraid I dont think you will be able to fix this. If mission critical then run your own runner so you can restart it on failure