Storjlabs/watchtower stop after update docker?

Node Operators troubleshooting
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1

Hi I’m using

  • storjlabs/watchtower

to update my storj node (docker).
after I update to:

  • Docker version 29.0.2, build 8108357
  • Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)

watchtower dont start…
logs says:

level=fatal msg=“Error response from daemon: client version 1.25 is too old. Minimum supported API version is 1.44, please upgrade your client to a newer version”

is this known?

1 Like
Watchtower crashes reporting client version is too old
2

Try adding:

environment:
<...>
   DOCKER_API_VERSION: 1.44
<...>

in the watchtower container configuration

3 Likes
SingleServer_MultiNode watchtower issue
3

I use this to create the watchtower:

docker run -d --restart=always --name watchtower -e DOCKER_API_VERSION=1.44 -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock storjlabs/watchtower storagenode watchtower --stop-timeout 300s
4

Today I got the same error on several nodes, but I could fix it by updating to docker 29.1.1
I’m using Ubuntu

5

I use Debian 12 bookworm on a Raspberri Pi 4, so I had to use the containrrr/watchtower version for compatibility and received the same error.

That’s because the repository on GitHub is outdated, I’m using nickfedor/watchtower now and it works just perfect, it’s a fork of the containrrr/watchtower repository, but it’s still up to date.

Watchtower logs:

time="2025-11-30T17:54:41Z" level=info msg="Watchtower 1.12.3 using Docker API v1.51"
time="2025-11-30T17:54:41Z" level=info msg="Using no notifications"
time="2025-11-30T17:54:41Z" level=info msg="Next scheduled run: 2025-12-01 17:54:41 UTC in 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds"
time="2025-12-01T17:54:50Z" level=info msg="Found new image" container=multinode image="storjlabs/multinode:latest" new_id=67e372g913313
time="2025-12-01T17:54:56Z" level=info msg="Stopping container" container=multinode id=9137281f924x signal=SIGTERM timeout=30s
time="2025-12-01T17:55:00Z" level=info msg="Started new container" container=multinode id=9137281f924x new_id=4591f43w1d36
time="2025-12-01T17:55:00Z" level=info msg="Update session completed" failed=0 notify=no scanned=7 updated=1
6

You don’t need watchtower in the first place. The problem is made up and self inflicted.

2 Likes
7

Thanks, if only the documentation would tell otherwise.
My newer nodes doesn’t use it anymore. But my older ones still have watchtower running in the background.

As of v1.52.2, the storagenode software will automatically update itself. We recommend that you install Watchtower in the event that the base image needs updating. Watchtower will look for new updates to the Docker container on Docker Hub in a random interval between 12 and 72 hours and automatically update your storage node when it sees a new version.

3 Likes
8

It sort of does, if you read between the lines.

“Node version will be controlled by storj inside the container, so you don’t have to worry about it, and base image maybe will update if ever and since it worked for years by now there would not be any hurry to update, definitely not daily”.

Storagenode is a go application. It has no dependencies. All it needs is a scheduler and an updater. That is also a go application without dependencies.

One might argue storagenode does not need to be containerized in the first place — but ok, it simplifies deployment; you have one command line instead of two, and a separate network stack may be handy. So, there is nothing to update really. That’s the background of it.

1 Like