docker-compose Error: FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

Question

I am trying to compose a Docker file with a YML file as below.

version: '3.6'
services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:12
    restart: always
    volumes:
    - db_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgrespassword
  graphql-engine:
    image: hasura/graphql-engine:v2.0.3
    ports:
    - "8080:8080"
    depends_on:
    - "postgres"
    restart: always
    environment:
      HASURA_GRAPHQL_METADATA_DATABASE_URL: postgres://postgres:postgrespassword@postgres:5432/postgres
      ## enable the console served by server
      HASURA_GRAPHQL_ENABLE_CONSOLE: "true" # set to "false" to disable console
      ## enable debugging mode. It is recommended to disable this in production
      HASURA_GRAPHQL_DEV_MODE: "true"
      HASURA_GRAPHQL_ENABLED_LOG_TYPES: startup, http-log, webhook-log, websocket-log, query-log
      ## uncomment next line to set an admin secret
      # HASURA_GRAPHQL_ADMIN_SECRET: myadminsecretkey
volumes:
  db_data:

But am getting the following error:

hasura-ais docker-compose up -d
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site-packages/urllib3/connectionpool.py", line 677, in urlopen
  File "site-packages/urllib3/connectionpool.py", line 392, in _make_request
  File "http/client.py", line 1252, in request
  File "http/client.py", line 1298, in _send_request
  File "http/client.py", line 1247, in endheaders
  File "http/client.py", line 1026, in _send_output
  File "http/client.py", line 966, in send
  File "site-packages/docker/transport/unixconn.py", line 43, in connect
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site-packages/requests/adapters.py", line 449, in send
  File "site-packages/urllib3/connectionpool.py", line 727, in urlopen
  File "site-packages/urllib3/util/retry.py", line 403, in increment
  File "site-packages/urllib3/packages/six.py", line 734, in reraise
  File "site-packages/urllib3/connectionpool.py", line 677, in urlopen
  File "site-packages/urllib3/connectionpool.py", line 392, in _make_request
  File "http/client.py", line 1252, in request
  File "http/client.py", line 1298, in _send_request
  File "http/client.py", line 1247, in endheaders
  File "http/client.py", line 1026, in _send_output
  File "http/client.py", line 966, in send
  File "site-packages/docker/transport/unixconn.py", line 43, in connect
urllib3.exceptions.ProtocolError: ('Connection aborted.', FileNotFoundError(2, 'No such file or directory'))

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site-packages/docker/api/client.py", line 205, in _retrieve_server_version
  File "site-packages/docker/api/daemon.py", line 181, in version
  File "site-packages/docker/utils/decorators.py", line 46, in inner
  File "site-packages/docker/api/client.py", line 228, in _get
  File "site-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 543, in get
  File "site-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 530, in request
  File "site-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 643, in send
  File "site-packages/requests/adapters.py", line 498, in send
requests.exceptions.ConnectionError: ('Connection aborted.', FileNotFoundError(2, 'No such file or directory'))

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "docker-compose", line 3, in <module>
  File "compose/cli/main.py", line 67, in main
  File "compose/cli/main.py", line 123, in perform_command
  File "compose/cli/command.py", line 69, in project_from_options
  File "compose/cli/command.py", line 132, in get_project
  File "compose/cli/docker_client.py", line 43, in get_client
  File "compose/cli/docker_client.py", line 170, in docker_client
  File "site-packages/docker/api/client.py", line 188, in __init__
  File "site-packages/docker/api/client.py", line 213, in _retrieve_server_version
docker.errors.DockerException: Error while fetching server API version: ('Connection aborted.', FileNotFoundError(2, 'No such file or directory'))
[18722] Failed to execute script docker-compose

Answer 1

Ran into the same issue. For some reason, opening and closing Docker Desktop (I'm on Mac) fixed it. Not sure why.

Answer 2

In case of snap-installed docker in a GNU/Linux machine try running:

 docker --version

Then if the error is:

cannot update snap namespace: cannot create symlink in "/etc/docker": existing file in the way
snap-update-ns failed with code 1

Run:

sudo mv /etc/docker /etc/docker_backup
sudo snap refresh docker 

Then the error wont occur any more.