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How to fix docker.errors.DockerException: Error while fetching server API version: ('Connection aborted.', FileNotFoundError(2, 'No such file or directory'))

Problem:

While running a docker command like docker-compose pull, you see an error message like

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/docker-compose", line 33, in <module>
    sys.exit(load_entry_point('docker-compose==1.27.4', 'console_scripts', 'docker-compose')())
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/compose/cli/main.py", line 67, in main
    command()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/compose/cli/main.py", line 123, in perform_command
    project = project_from_options('.', options)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/compose/cli/command.py", line 60, in project_from_options
    return get_project(
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/compose/cli/command.py", line 131, in get_project
    client = get_client(
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/compose/cli/docker_client.py", line 41, in get_client
    client = docker_client(
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/compose/cli/docker_client.py", line 170, in docker_client
    client = APIClient(**kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/docker/api/client.py", line 197, in __init__
    self._version = self._retrieve_server_version()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/docker/api/client.py", line 221, in _retrieve_server_version
    raise DockerException(
docker.errors.DockerException: Error while fetching server API version: ('Connection aborted.', FileNotFoundError(2, 'No such file or directory'))

Solution

This means you haven’t started your docker service!

First, try to start it using

sudo systemctl start docker

or

sudo service docker start

or

sudo /etc/init.d/docker restart

(whatever works with your distribution).

After that, retry the command that originally caused the error message to appear.

In case it still shows the same error message, try the following steps:

cat /var/log/docker.log

Check that file for errors during docker startup.