This repository contains a lightweight sample project to recreate the error 137 for Eclipse Docker Tooling plug-in. The error seems to produce any time a Docker container used for building a project is launched for more than 31 seconds.
For this sample project, I have installed the following versions of Eclipse and Docker. The Eclipse versions are taken from Help -> Install New Software -> What is already installed? -> Installed Software
| Software/Plug-in | Version |
|---|---|
| Eclipse IDE for Java Developers | 2026-03 |
| Docker Desktop for Windows | 28.1.1, build 43ba377 |
| C/C++ Autotools support | 12.4.0.202512101642 |
| C/C++ Docker Container Launch Support | 12.4.0.202512101642 |
| Docker Tooling | 5.22.0.202603032107 (though in Marketplace it shows Eclipse Docker Tooling 5.18.1) |
To easily import the project with container settings, do the following:
After building opening Docker desktop and building the image, right click the project and go to properties -> C/C++ Build -> Settings -> Container Settings. In there configure set the docker image as the build tool.
Finally, build the project!
In the makefile, there is a sleep delay to artificially extend the length of the build. On my device, I have found a value of 29.8s for sleep that displays the container being stopped mid way through the build. This is to show that the container is not killed because there is nothing happening (if the sleep was too long and the container died, we could have hypothesized that the container is killed due to no outputs and gets cleaned up).
As such, in my case, here is when the build is stopped. The build is stopped before the "make all" has finished as demonstrated by the absence of the B.exe and B.o file.
If we put the sleep value to 0, all file executables are properly produced:
Once again, you may need to adjust the value of sleep on your own machine to see the killing of the container happening midway through a build. In any case, any time the container is up for longer than 31s, it is shutdown with the exit code 137.