Watchtower won't auto-update

[vderaa]

Hey all, as the title suggests, I can't find a way to have Watchtower update itself when a new version is detected.

I have the following in my docker-compose.yml file; am I missing something, Or are the new version alerts also triggering for dev builds that my config wont grab given the ':latest' tag?

watchtower:
image: ghcr.io/nicholas-fedor/watchtower:latest
container_name: watchtower
networks:
-
restart: unless-stopped
volumes:
- /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
environment:
- WATCHTOWER_POLL_INTERVAL=21600
- WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATIONS=slack
- WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_SLACK_HOOK_URL=
- WATCHTOWER_CLEANUP=true
ports:
- '8080:8080'

Thanks!

[nicholas-fedor]

Watchtower, by default, will perform a self-update when it compares its current image digest against the upstream repo (i.e. ghcr.io in your case) digest for the particular tag (i.e. nicholas-fedor/watchtower:latest). Self-updates are performed after all other container updates.

If you want to test this functionality yourself, then you can always pull an older tagged version, retag it as latest, then run Watchtower with a short interval to trigger the update (Run once functionality had a bug that is fixed and pending release).

There is absolutely no reason why you would see latest-dev images being used for updates when you're using a latest tagged image.

[vderaa]

Thanks for the explanation. Will it only update if there's another container that is also updating?

Here's an example of what I've been seeing, it looks like it's alerted to me 3 times, 6 hours between, but I'm still not sure it's trying to update.

I've switched to pulling from 'nickfedor/watchtower:latest' now

[nicholas-fedor]

Will it only update if there's another container that is also updating?

No. If you were to only have a Watchtower container running on the host, then it would update itself as part of the configured update cycle.

Here's an example of what I've been seeing, it looks like it's alerted to me 3 times, 6 hours between, but I'm still not sure it's trying to update.

Your poll interval is every 6 hours, which explains the interval.
The short ID of d75b288237b9 references Watchtower version 1.12.5.
This would mean that you are possibly still using version 1.12.4, which had several items patched that are related to your setup, i.e. notifications, updates, etc.

I would suggest manually pulling and restarting Watchtower with the latest version to clear things up. If you continue to see this behavior, then the next step will be to enable debug logging and submit a bug report with the debug logs.

[vderaa]

Thanks; I'll make sure I'm on the newest version and provide a report if I'm still seeing issues.

[vderaa]

Hey - same thing happened yesterday.

I've even tried deleting the container and pulling it again. I did have debug logging turned on too, but as soon as I get the notification that the new version is available, the logs also get wiped, so 'docker logs watchtower' is empty. Restarting the container does fix the issue until there's another new version.

[vderaa]

This is still happening.

When I try and grab the Logs (with verbose/debug on) there are non. Every time it checks for the updates, it wipes the logs entirely.

[vderaa]

Another update on this one, it looks like watchtower is pulling down the new image, but it isn't cleaning up correctly.

The older container has the tag none

Every 30 mins, its pulling down a new image and creating a new container.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[nicholas-fedor]

Completely cleanup everything, including old Watchtower images, then pull and start using the absolute latest image (version 1.14.0).

[nicholas-fedor]

The fact that you are seeing the containers with the fully randomized names, rather than the new format for naming old Watchtower containers indicates that it's still using the old image version.

[vderaa]

Thanks. I've removed the images and containers, then ran docker compose again. It's pulled the latest version.

Is there anything else you would recommend?

[nicholas-fedor]

The issues that you experienced are expected to be fixed with this latest version. If you experience further issues, then submit an issue.