Docker error on Windows runner `failed to connect to the docker API at npipe:////./pipe/docker_engine`

[lesteve]

This is similar to actions/runner-images#13729

Here is a possible work-around restart Docker service in a loop until it becomes available and eventually fail if it doesn't work: https://github.com/spiffe/spire/blob/cb7073c250ef6eb568b837e4448cc58a30450067/.github/workflows/scripts/wait-for-docker-windows.ps1

The error looks like this, it has been seen in scikit-learn and scikit-learn-release:

++ docker run -it -v 'D:\a\scikit-learn-release\scikit-learn-release:C:/mnt' -d winamd64/python:3.13-windowsservercore
failed to connect to the docker API at npipe:////./pipe/docker_engine; check if the path is correct and if the daemon is running: open //./pipe/docker_engine: The system cannot find the file specified.

Last time it was seen: #2 (comment)

Recently seen in scikit-learn as well: scikit-learn/scikit-learn#34569 (comment). It occasionally happens in the scikit-learn CI as well.

[lesteve]

To give an idea the Docker error was happening quite often (I did double-check that in each case the error was indeed the Docker on Windows one):