Portainer reinstall failure - cannot connect to the Docker daemon

Troubleshooting
1

Creating a bug report/issue

I have searched the existing open and closed issues

Required Information

  • DietPi version | G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=10
    G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=3
    G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=3
    G_GITBRANCH=‘master’
    G_GITOWNER=‘MichaIng’
    G_LIVE_PATCH_STATUS[0]=‘applied’
    G_LIVE_PATCH_STATUS[1]=‘not applied’
    G_LIVE_PATCH_STATUS[2]=‘not applied’
  • Distro version | trixie
  • Kernel version | Linux DietPi 6.12.85+deb13-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.12.85-1 (2026-04-30) x86_64 GNU/Linux
  • Architecture | amd64
  • SBC model | Virtual Machine (x86_64)
  • Power supply used | not sure
  • SD card used | no sdcard

Additional Information (if applicable)

  • Software title | Portainer
  • Was the software title installed freshly or updated/migrated? no
  • Can this issue be replicated on a fresh installation of DietPi?
    ← If you sent a “dietpi-bugreport”, please paste the ID here →
  • Bug report ID | 25892e92-c7b1-45c1-8949-18902d0d0c03

Steps to reproduce

Trying to update Portainer 2.39.1 to Portainer 2.39.2

  1. sudo dietpi-software reinstall 185

Expected behaviour

Should update Portainer to version 2.39.2

Actual behaviour

  • The update process stops with errors:

  • Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?

  • [FAILED] DietPi-Software | docker voluma create portainer_data

Extra details

After cancelling the reinstall process due to the error, Portainer and Docker stay off and don’t restart. Had to reboot to restart all services.

2

this is strange because the volume should not be created if already exist.

Means this should not happen on reinstall

Problem seems to be Docker engine as it is not available while you try to reinstall.

Just tested on my demo system, and there it is working without issue. Maybe Docker died on your system

snip from reinstall

 DietPi-Software
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Step: Installing Portainer: Simplifies container management in Docker (standalone host)

[  OK  ] DietPi-Software | docker container rm -f 2009628e65b4
[  OK  ] DietPi-Software | docker image rm 8d2f5c9fbc5b
[ INFO ] DietPi-Software | docker run -d -p 9002:9000 -p 9442:9443 --name=portainer --restart=always -v /run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt:/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt:ro -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer-ce, please wait...
Unable to find image 'portainer/portainer-ce:latest' locally
latest: Pulling from portainer/portainer-ce