Skip to content

What to do if a Docker container immediately exits

If you run a container using docker run and it immediately exits and every time you press the Start button in Docker Desktop it exits again, there is a problem.

The way to figure out what is wrong is to run docker logs, adding the name of the container at the end:

You can also click the Container name in Docker Desktop, and it will show a list of logs:

In this case after a quick Google search I realized I used a single quote in my CMD command.

Note that to fix problems like this, you need to remove the container, but also delete the image and rebuild it.


→ I wrote 17 books to help you become a better developer:

  • C Handbook
  • Command Line Handbook
  • CSS Handbook
  • Express Handbook
  • Git Cheat Sheet
  • Go Handbook
  • HTML Handbook
  • JS Handbook
  • Laravel Handbook
  • Next.js Handbook
  • Node.js Handbook
  • PHP Handbook
  • Python Handbook
  • React Handbook
  • SQL Handbook
  • Svelte Handbook
  • Swift Handbook
...download them all now!

Also, JOIN MY CODING BOOTCAMP, an amazing cohort course that will be a huge step up in your coding career - covering React, Next.js - next edition February 2025

Bootcamp 2025

Join the waiting list