On ubuntu-latest, docker containers take longer to start - are not fully up even after 100s sleep - tests fail

[zainUKEF]

Description

Last week, our pipeline started failing with

 [cause]: AxiosError: socket hang up
    [stack]: [Getter/Setter],
    [message]: 'socket hang up',
    name: 'Error',
    isAxiosError: true,
    code: 'ECONNRESET',

which is happening on ubuntu-latest. This does not happen on ubuntu-22.04.
It seems that the container does not start up in time. We have a sleep 100s step and that is not enough. On ubuntu-latest, it needs at least 4-5minute sleep before the containers are ready. By ready I mean ready to receive eg. API listening to requests on its port

On 22.04, the containers are up in time for our tests to start running

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• Ubuntu Slim
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• macOS 26
• macOS 26 Arm64
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025
• Windows Server 2025 with Visual Studio 2026

Image version and build link

Image: ubuntu***24.04
Version: 20260224.36.1

https://github.com/UK-Export-Finance/dtfs2/actions/runs/22529133210/job/65265884163?pr=4649

Is it regression?

no

Expected behavior

It should run fine like in
Image: ubuntu***22.04
Version: 20260224.45.1

https://github.com/UK-Export-Finance/dtfs2/actions/runs/22528962517/job/65265369411?pr=4648

Where it worked fine

Actual behavior

The docker containers are not going up in time. Failing with ECONNRESET as the containers are still starting on latest ubuntu runner image

Repro steps

1. Push to branch
2. Test fails were api is called with ECONNRESET

[shamil-mubarakshin]

Hey @zainUKEF, we will take a look and get back.

[HofmeisterAn]

I think we're running into the same or a similar issue. Initializing the containers sometimes takes very long, as you can see here. In Testcontainers for .NET, many runs are hitting timeouts (--blame-hang-timeout) and failing unexpectedly. Something that never happened before. It seems that pulling container images is extremely slow.