Issue starting Docker - Failed to start LSB: Create lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers

Question

Docker was working fine on Ubuntu box. Then, the Java version was updated for a different reason.

Now, all on a sudden docker is no longer running.

Tried different approach to recover, but it did not avail. Any pointers would help. Thanks.

$ sudo systemctl start docker
Job for docker.service failed because the control process exited with error code.

$ systemctl status docker.service
● docker.service - LSB: Create lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers.
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/docker; generated)
  Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/docker.service.d
           └─10_docke_proxy.conf
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2020-04-23 17:06:05 EDT; 11s ago
     Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
  Process: 8962 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/docker start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
 Main PID: 2746 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Apr 23 17:06:05 ******** systemd[1]: Starting LSB: Create lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers....
Apr 23 17:06:05 ******** docker[8962]:  * /usr/bin/dockerd not present or not executable
Apr 23 17:06:05 ******** systemd[1]: docker.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Apr 23 17:06:05 ******** systemd[1]: docker.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

Answer 1

Finally use this fixed.

wget -qO- https://get.docker.com/ | sh

This is the output

# Executing docker install script, commit: 26ff363bcf3b3f5a00498ac43694bf1c7d9ce16c
Warning: the "docker" command appears to already exist on this system.

If you already have Docker installed, this script can cause trouble, which is
why we're displaying this warning and provide the opportunity to cancel the
installation.

If you installed the current Docker package using this script and are using it
again to update Docker, you can safely ignore this message.

You may press Ctrl+C now to abort this script.
+ sleep 20

+ sh -c apt-get update -qq >/dev/null
+ sh -c DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y -qq apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl >/dev/null
+ sh -c curl -fsSL "https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg" | apt-key add -qq - >/dev/null
Warning: apt-key output should not be parsed (stdout is not a terminal)
+ sh -c echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu bionic stable" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list
+ sh -c apt-get update -qq >/dev/null
W: Target Packages (stable/binary-amd64/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target Packages (stable/binary-all/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target Translations (stable/i18n/Translation-en_US) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target Translations (stable/i18n/Translation-en) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target CNF (stable/cnf/Commands-amd64) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target CNF (stable/cnf/Commands-all) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target Packages (stable/binary-amd64/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target Packages (stable/binary-all/Packages) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target Translations (stable/i18n/Translation-en_US) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target Translations (stable/i18n/Translation-en) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target CNF (stable/cnf/Commands-amd64) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
W: Target CNF (stable/cnf/Commands-all) is configured multiple times in /etc/apt/sources.list:56 and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list:1
+ [ -n  ]
+ sh -c apt-get install -y -qq --no-install-recommends docker-ce >/dev/null
+ sh -c docker version
Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           19.03.12
 API version:       1.40
 Go version:        go1.13.10
 Git commit:        48a66213fe
 Built:             Mon Jun 22 15:45:36 2020
 OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
 Experimental:      false

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          19.03.12
  API version:      1.40 (minimum version 1.12)
  Go version:       go1.13.10
  Git commit:       48a66213fe
  Built:            Mon Jun 22 15:44:07 2020
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          1.2.13
  GitCommit:        7ad184331fa3e55e52b890ea95e65ba581ae3429
 runc:
  Version:          1.0.0-rc10
  GitCommit:        dc9208a3303feef5b3839f4323d9beb36df0a9dd
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.18.0
  GitCommit:        fec3683
If you would like to use Docker as a non-root user, you should now consider
adding your user to the "docker" group with something like:

  sudo usermod -aG docker your-user

Remember that you will have to log out and back in for this to take effect!

WARNING: Adding a user to the "docker" group will grant the ability to run
         containers which can be used to obtain root privileges on the
         docker host.
         Refer to https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/security/#docker-daemon-attack-surface
         for more information.

Answer 2

this worked for me:

$ sudo apt remove docker
$ sudo apt install docker docker-ce

I recommend to everyone to follow the official documentation. Which also starts with removing any old libraries then adding the GPG keys then installing the stable version of the library.

Answer 3

I used "Install from a package" method from Docker's official page. We have to install three deb packages. docker-ce, docker-ce-cli and containerd.io. I got this issue resolved by using all three debs released on the same date.