The image gets implicitly deleted from Docker Hub

[meliwex]

Problem description

Two months ago I followed this tutorial where I built the image and pushed it to Docker Hub, everything worked well. After two months, I notice that the image is considered as "INACTIVE IMAGE" and I am not able to pull the image. Later I notice that the image doesn't exist in Docker Hub anymore, I guess it implicitly gets deleted from Docker Hub. Is there a reason for this? How can I restore the image?

My Docker ID: meliwex

Task List

• [x] This is NOT a security issue
• [x] I do NOT have a Docker subscription
• [x] I have looked through other issues and they do NOT apply to me

[milosgajdos]

Hi, thanks for reporting.

I had a look and it seems the meliwex/cat repository was deleted from the Hub UI on 2022-04-01 T12:31:44.

As for the images marked as INACTIVE there should be nothing preventing you from pulling them if the repository the images are part of is active. If you've tried to pull from a repository that was in the process of being deleted, then you wouldn't be able to pull the image.

[meliwex]

@milosgajdos So do you think I deleted the repository meliwex/cat explicitly? It's weird. Today I noticed that the repositories and tags can be deleted from Docker Hub instantly and it didn't take much time. I cannot understand why I could not pull the image when it was in "INACTIVE IMAGE" state?

[milosgajdos]

@milosgajdos So do you think I deleted the repository meliwex/cat explicitly? It's weird.

That's what we are seeing in our logs.

I cannot understand why I could not pull the image when it was in "INACTIVE IMAGE" state?

It'd be great to see the error you'd experienced when pulling the image.

[meliwex]

@milosgajdos

After executing: docker pull meliwex/cat:latest

Error response from daemon: pull access denied for meliwex/cat, repository does not exist or may require 'docker login': denied: requested access to the resource is denied

Also, I want to mention that at that time I had the ability to see the image in Docker Hub, but in "INACTIVE IMAGE" state.

[milosgajdos]

The INACTIVE IMAGE does not help us much here -- it merely marks an image that has not been touched for over a month.

Was this a private or public repo? NOTE: if you exceeded your allocated private repo limit your repository becomes locked which prevents the pulls.

[meliwex]

@milosgajdos

The repository was public. I remember that at that time I was able to pull other official images (just to test that my network is working), but when I tried to pull this image I got the error.

I also could not push a new tag to the repository meliwex/cat in Docker Hub at that time.

[milosgajdos]

Hi @meliwex very strange, indeed! Apologies for the inconvenience. Next time this happens can please reach out to support as soon as possible, providing the approximate time.

[meliwex]

@milosgajdos Is your provided date (2022-04-01 T12:31:44) in UTC?

[milosgajdos]

I believe that's correct.Yes.

[meliwex]

@milosgajdos your provided logs say that the repository was deleted on "April 01", but in my browser, I see that I accessed the repository in hub.docker on "April 02", so that's why it's weird.

These are the screenshots:

Note: my time is UTC +4