When trying to up Docker containers, using the distribution of Laradock, with standard images of apache2, redis, mariadb e workspace, I came across the following list of errors.

Apparently the errors describe that Python modules are not available because it does not find the *.py files.

docker-compose up -d apache2 redis mariadb workspace 

# output
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "urllib3/connectionpool.py", line 670, in urlopen
  File "urllib3/connectionpool.py", line 392, in _make_request
  File "http/client.py", line 1255, in request
  File "http/client.py", line 1301, in _send_request
  File "http/client.py", line 1250, in endheaders
  File "http/client.py", line 1010, in _send_output
  File "http/client.py", line 950, in send
  File "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 "requests/adapters.py", line 439, in send
  File "urllib3/connectionpool.py", line 726, in urlopen
  File "urllib3/util/retry.py", line 410, in increment
  File "urllib3/packages/six.py", line 734, in reraise
  File "urllib3/connectionpool.py", line 670, in urlopen
  File "urllib3/connectionpool.py", line 392, in _make_request
  File "http/client.py", line 1255, in request
  File "http/client.py", line 1301, in _send_request
  File "http/client.py", line 1250, in endheaders
  File "http/client.py", line 1010, in _send_output
  File "http/client.py", line 950, in send
  File "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 "docker/api/client.py", line 214, in _retrieve_server_version
  File "docker/api/daemon.py", line 181, in version
  File "docker/utils/decorators.py", line 46, in inner
  File "docker/api/client.py", line 237, in _get
  File "requests/sessions.py", line 543, in get
  File "requests/sessions.py", line 530, in request
  File "requests/sessions.py", line 643, in send
  File "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 81, in main
  File "compose/cli/main.py", line 200, in perform_command
  File "compose/cli/command.py", line 60, in project_from_options
  File "compose/cli/command.py", line 152, in get_project
  File "compose/cli/docker_client.py", line 41, in get_client
  File "compose/cli/docker_client.py", line 170, in docker_client
  File "docker/api/client.py", line 197, in __init__
  File "docker/api/client.py", line 221, in _retrieve_server_version
docker.errors.DockerException: Error while fetching server API version: ('Connection aborted.', FileNotFoundError(2, 'No such file or directory'))
[8278] Failed to execute script docker-compose

Fixing Docker Error with Python

Despite an extensive list of errors and poorly descriptive messages, the solution is extremely simple:

Yes, that’s right, Docker is not running and the list of errors shown is not intuitive.

To start Docker if you are in a Linux Ubuntu, Mint or Debian system, just run the following command on terminal:

sudo systemctl start docker

To start Docker in a MacOS system:

cmd + space + type "docker" into the search bar + enter

# or

sudo launchctl start docker

Conclusions

Follow this simple tip, add as the first step to your problem solving checklist when receiving errors from a service in the operating system:

Check if the service is running.