After updating portainer, all existing stacks are showing : "could not get the contents of the file 'docker-compose.yml' "

[wael-t]

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I updated portainer, and when I sign in, all the stacks are here and the containers are running with no issues, but the content of docker compose inside the editor disappeared from all stacks, whenever I click on the editor I am getting this message: "could not get the contents of the file 'docker-compose.yml'". Even if I manually add content to the editor in order to update the stack, the update button below is greyed and I can't complete this step.

So how this happenned? In order to update Portainer, I deleted the old container and installed the new one (as I did many times before), but this time I installed the business version by mistake first, then when I figured out that I deleted it and reinstalled the community version. And now there is no docker-compose.yml or maybe portainer is unable to locte the data folder. However, when I redeployed the container I didn't change the settings of the portainer_data folder at all.

This is really frustrating, because now I can't update any container with no docker-compose, I made only a back up back when the stacks were simple, but I was adding more and more settings and services to my existing stacks that took me a lot of research and time and I didn't back up these modifications.

I would really really appreciate your help or if there is a workaround.

[Nick-Portainer]

Can you explain how you deployed Portainer server, did you make a named volume before deploying Portainer or did you just deploy via the run command?

You want to make sure that you manually created the volume first so each deployment will use that volume rather than making a new one on a new deployment, avoiding dataloss.

[wael-t]

Hi Nick,
Thanks a lot for your follow up.
To answer your question. When I first deployed the Portainer server I created a portainer_data directory before deploying the stack following the steps mentioned in the website. I did update Portainer 2 times before without having any issue: I stop the portainer container, I delete it, then I redeploy a new container with this command:

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 -p 9000:9000 -p 9443:9443 --name=portainer --restart=always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer

Only that this time I am having this problem where the docker-compsose files disappeared. I can't figure out what I did wrong this time!

[Nick-Portainer]

Ah, this is because you are using an outdated run command/registry.

Our Docker image registry changed from portainer/portainer:latest to portainer/portainer-ce:latest and portainer/portainer-ee:latest. It's always best to follow our official documentation here:

• Portainer Business Edition: https://docs.portainer.io/start/install
• Portainer Community Edition: https://docs.portainer.io/start/install-ce

So for deploying Portainer CE it would look like this:

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 -p 9443:9443 --name portainer --restart=always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer-ce:2.21.2

My bad, I should of noticed the incorrect registry in your above comments!

[wael-t]

I tried to follow the steps and I installed the latest -ce:2.21.2 version but now the container keeps restarting without really starting at all, tried to downgrade to earlier versions like :2.21.1 and the same thing happens. Here are the logs provided by docker:

2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:370 > encryption key file not present | filename=portainer 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:393 > proceeding without encryption key | 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/database/boltdb/db.go:125 > loading PortainerDB | filename=portainer.db 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM FTL github.com/portainer/portainer/api/datastore/migrator/migrate_ce.go:101 > the Portainer database is set for Portainer Business Edition, please follow the instructions in our documentation to downgrade it: https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/ | 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:370 > encryption key file not present | filename=portainer 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:393 > proceeding without encryption key | 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/database/boltdb/db.go:125 > loading PortainerDB | filename=portainer.db 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM FTL github.com/portainer/portainer/api/datastore/migrator/migrate_ce.go:101 > the Portainer database is set for Portainer Business Edition, please follow the instructions in our documentation to downgrade it: https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/ | 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:370 > encryption key file not present | filename=portainer 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:393 > proceeding without encryption key | 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/database/boltdb/db.go:125 > loading PortainerDB | filename=portainer.db 2024-10-06 23:50:20 2024/10/06 07:50PM FTL github.com/portainer/portainer/api/datastore/migrator/migrate_ce.go:101 > the Portainer database is set for Portainer Business Edition, please follow the instructions in our documentation to downgrade it: https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/ | 2024-10-06 23:50:21 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:370 > encryption key file not present | filename=portainer 2024-10-06 23:50:21 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:393 > proceeding without encryption key | 2024-10-06 23:50:21 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/database/boltdb/db.go:125 > loading PortainerDB | filename=portainer.db 2024-10-06 23:50:21 2024/10/06 07:50PM FTL github.com/portainer/portainer/api/datastore/migrator/migrate_ce.go:101 > the Portainer database is set for Portainer Business Edition, please follow the instructions in our documentation to downgrade it: https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/ | 2024-10-06 23:50:22 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:370 > encryption key file not present | filename=portainer 2024-10-06 23:50:22 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:393 > proceeding without encryption key | 2024-10-06 23:50:22 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/database/boltdb/db.go:125 > loading PortainerDB | filename=portainer.db 2024-10-06 23:50:22 2024/10/06 07:50PM FTL github.com/portainer/portainer/api/datastore/migrator/migrate_ce.go:101 > the Portainer database is set for Portainer Business Edition, please follow the instructions in our documentation to downgrade it: https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/ | 2024-10-06 23:50:23 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:370 > encryption key file not present | filename=portainer 2024-10-06 23:50:23 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:393 > proceeding without encryption key | 2024-10-06 23:50:23 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/database/boltdb/db.go:125 > loading PortainerDB | filename=portainer.db 2024-10-06 23:50:23 2024/10/06 07:50PM FTL github.com/portainer/portainer/api/datastore/migrator/migrate_ce.go:101 > the Portainer database is set for Portainer Business Edition, please follow the instructions in our documentation to downgrade it: https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/ | 2024-10-06 23:50:27 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:370 > encryption key file not present | filename=portainer 2024-10-06 23:50:27 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:393 > proceeding without encryption key | 2024-10-06 23:50:27 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/database/boltdb/db.go:125 > loading PortainerDB | filename=portainer.db 2024-10-06 23:50:27 2024/10/06 07:50PM FTL github.com/portainer/portainer/api/datastore/migrator/migrate_ce.go:101 > the Portainer database is set for Portainer Business Edition, please follow the instructions in our documentation to downgrade it: https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/ | 2024-10-06 23:50:33 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:370 > encryption key file not present | filename=portainer 2024-10-06 23:50:33 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:393 > proceeding without encryption key | 2024-10-06 23:50:33 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/database/boltdb/db.go:125 > loading PortainerDB | filename=portainer.db 2024-10-06 23:50:33 2024/10/06 07:50PM FTL github.com/portainer/portainer/api/datastore/migrator/migrate_ce.go:101 > the Portainer database is set for Portainer Business Edition, please follow the instructions in our documentation to downgrade it: https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/ | 2024-10-06 23:50:46 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:370 > encryption key file not present | filename=portainer 2024-10-06 23:50:46 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:393 > proceeding without encryption key | 2024-10-06 23:50:46 2024/10/06 07:50PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/database/boltdb/db.go:125 > loading PortainerDB | filename=portainer.db 2024-10-06 23:50:46 2024/10/06 07:50PM FTL github.com/portainer/portainer/api/datastore/migrator/migrate_ce.go:101 > the Portainer database is set for Portainer Business Edition, please follow the instructions in our documentation to downgrade it: https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/ | 2024-10-06 23:51:12 2024/10/06 07:51PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:370 > encryption key file not present | filename=portainer 2024-10-06 23:51:12 2024/10/06 07:51PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/cmd/portainer/main.go:393 > proceeding without encryption key | 2024-10-06 23:51:12 2024/10/06 07:51PM INF github.com/portainer/portainer/api/database/boltdb/db.go:125 > loading PortainerDB | filename=portainer.db 2024-10-06 23:51:12 2024/10/06 07:51PM FTL github.com/portainer/portainer/api/datastore/migrator/migrate_ce.go:101 > the Portainer database is set for Portainer Business Edition, please follow the instructions in our documentation to downgrade it: https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/ |

[wael-t]

Based on the logs, it appears the issue began when I accidentally upgraded to the business version (as I mentioned in my first question because for some reason I was skeptical about this thing). When I reverted to the community edition, the database didn’t downgrade accordingly, and now it’s incompatible with the community edition.

The logs include a link with more details, suggesting that downgrading the database is possible if the upgrade was initially made from a -ce version to an -ee version. However, in my case, I was using the old portainer/portainer:latest version, not the -ce version, before accidentally upgrading to the -ee version.

Is it still possible to downgrade the database in this scenario?

[wael-t]

So, the portainer_data needed to be downgraded to be again compatible with the community edition, which turned out to be the underlying issue. I backed up the portainer_data volume and followed the downgrade steps outlined on the official website:

https://documentation.portainer.io/v2.0-be/downgrade/be-to-ce/

Now, everything appears to be working without any issues: Portainer has been updated to the latest -ce version, and I have full access to the Docker compose files.

Thanks a lot @Nick-Portainer for your patience and your help.

[Nick-Portainer]

Glad you got it sorted!