If your pipelines suddenly started failing with an error like:
Error response from daemon: client version 1.40 is too old.
Minimum supported API version is 1.44
—even though you didn’t change anything, this is not a CI issue and not a random failure. Some breaking changes have been introduced recently.
Let’s say you have a Docker-in-Docker setup in GitLab CI, for example:
image: docker:stable # gets the latest stable
services:
- docker:dind # pulls the latest dind version
script:
- docker login/build/push ...
..and this have worked for years
The problem is that docker:stable has not actually been updated for a long time. It’s effective version is Docker 19.03.14.
The docker:stable, docker:test, and related “channel” tags have been deprecated since June 2020 and have not been updated since December 2020 (when Docker 20.10 was released)
At the same time, docker:dind is actively updated and may now be running Docker 29.2.0 (as of February 1, 2026).
The docker login command is executed inside the job container (docker:stable), which contains the Docker CLI. That CLI sends requests to the Docker daemon running in the docker:dind service. With this version mismatch, the request now fails. Why?
Starting with Docker Engine 29, the Docker daemon enforces a minimum supported Docker API version and drops support for older clients entirely. This is a real breaking change, and it has a significant impact on CI systems — especially GitLab CI setups using the Docker executor with docker:dind.
The daemon now requires API version v1.44 or later (Docker v25.0+).
This would not have been an issue if best practices had been followed. GitLab documentation (and many other sources) clearly states:
You should always pin a specific version of the image, like docker:24.0.5. If you use a tag like docker:latest, you have no control over which version is used. This can cause incompatibility problems when new versions are released.
Another case illustrating why you should not use latest or any other tag that doesn’t allow you to control which version is used.
Solution 1 – use specific versions (25+ in this case; recommended)
image: docker:29.2.0
services:
- docker:29.2.0-dind
script:
- docker login/build/push ...
Solution 2– set docker min api version for daemon:
services:
- name: docker:dind
variables:
DOCKER_MIN_API_VERSION: "1.40"
Solution 3 – change daemon.json with min api version:
{
"min-api-version": "1.40"
}
1.40 represents docker:stable API version; in theory, Docker can break something again, so solution 1 is always preferable (for me, at least)
Hope it was helpful to someone.
UseIT | Roman Levchenko 