Docker [for mac] file system became read-only which breaks almost all features of docker

Question

My Docker ran into an error state, where I cannot use it anymore.

output of docker system info:

Containers: 14
Running: 2
Paused: 0
Stopped: 12
Images: 61
Server Version: 18.03.1-ce
Storage Driver: overlay2
Backing Filesystem: extfs
Supports d_type: true
Native Overlay Diff: true
Logging Driver: json-file
Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
Plugins:
Volume: local
Network: bridge host macvlan null overlay
Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file logentries splunk syslog
Swarm: error
NodeID:
Error: open /var/lib/docker/swarm/worker/tasks.db: read-only file system
Is Manager: false
Node Address: 192.168.65.3
Runtimes: runc
Default Runtime: runc
Init Binary: docker-init
containerd version: 773c489c9c1b21a6d78b5c538cd395416ec50f88
runc version: 4fc53a81fb7c994640722ac585fa9ca548971871
init version: 949e6fa
Security Options:
seccomp
Profile: default
Kernel Version: 4.9.87-linuxkit-aufs
Operating System: Docker for Mac
OSType: linux
Architecture: x86_64
CPUs: 2
Total Memory: 1.952GiB
Name: linuxkit-025000000001
ID: MCSC:SFXH:R3JC:NU4D:OJ5V:K4B5:LPMJ:2BFL:LHT3:LYCI:XKY2:DTE6
Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
Debug Mode (client): false
Debug Mode (server): false
HTTP Proxy: docker.for.mac.http.internal:3128
HTTPS Proxy: docker.for.mac.http.internal:3129
Registry: https://index.docker.io/v1/
Labels:
Experimental: false
Insecure Registries:
127.0.0.0/8
Live Restore Enabled: false

This behaviour occured, after I built the following Dockerfile:

FROM perl:5.20

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y libsoap-lite-perl \
&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

RUN cpan SOAP::LITE

the error message when I try to build an image or run a container or remove an image is always similar to this:

Error: open /var/lib/docker/swarm/worker/tasks.db: read-only file system

for example if I try to execute this command:

docker container run -it perl:5.20 bash

I get this error:

docker: Error response from daemon: mkdir /var/lib/docker/overlay2/1b966e163e500a8c78a64e8d0f14984b091c1c5fe188a60b8bd030672d3138d9-init: read-only file system.

How can I reset my docker so these errors go away?

Answer 1

Go to your docker for mac Icon in the top right, click on it and then click Restart. After that Docker works as expected.

This seems to be an temporary issue since I cannot reproduce it after restarting docker. My guess is that I had an network communication breakdown while docker tried to download and install the packages in the Dockerfile.