[BUG] Error response from daemon: client version 1.42 is too old. Minimum supported API version is 1.44, please upgrade your client to a newer version

[swiss-knight]

Description

On Ubuntu 22.04.5, since a recent apt-get upgrade which brought docker -ce version 29.x instead of 28.x, I now met this error while running some compose commands:

$ docker compose ps 
Error response from daemon: client version 1.42 is too old. Minimum supported API version is 1.44, please upgrade your client to a newer version

while:

$ docker version
Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           29.0.2
 API version:       1.52
 Go version:        go1.25.4
 Git commit:        8108357
 Built:             Mon Nov 17 12:33:14 2025
 OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
 Context:           default

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          29.0.2
  API version:      1.52 (minimum version 1.44)
  Go version:       go1.25.4
  Git commit:       e9ff10b
  Built:            Mon Nov 17 12:33:14 2025
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          v2.1.5
  GitCommit:        fcd43222d6b07379a4be9786bda52438f0dd16a1
 runc:
  Version:          1.3.3
  GitCommit:        v1.3.3-0-gd842d771
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.19.0
  GitCommit:        de40ad0

and:

$ docker compose version
Docker Compose version v2.5.0

Also:

apt-cache policy docker-ce
docker-ce:
  Installed: 5:29.0.2-1~ubuntu.22.04~jammy
  Candidate: 5:29.0.2-1~ubuntu.22.04~jammy
Version table:
 ...

Steps To Reproduce

docker compose ps simply raises:

Error response from daemon: client version 1.42 is too old. Minimum supported API version is 1.44, please upgrade your client to a newer version

Compose Version

Docker Compose version v2.5.0

Docker Environment

Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:    29.0.2
 Context:    default
 Debug Mode: false
 Plugins:
  buildx: Docker Buildx (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.30.0
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx
  compose: Docker Compose (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v2.5.0
    Path:     /usr/local/lib/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose

Server:
 Containers: 12
  Running: 12
  Paused: 0
  Stopped: 0
 Images: 178
 Server Version: 29.0.2
 Storage Driver: overlay2
  Backing Filesystem: extfs
  Supports d_type: true
  Using metacopy: false
  Native Overlay Diff: true
  userxattr: false
 Logging Driver: json-file
 Cgroup Driver: systemd
 Cgroup Version: 2
 Plugins:
  Volume: local
  Network: bridge host ipvlan macvlan null overlay
  Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file local splunk syslog
 CDI spec directories:
  /etc/cdi
  /var/run/cdi
 Swarm: error
  NodeID: 
  Error: error while loading TLS certificate in /var/lib/docker/swarm/certificates/swarm-node.crt: certificate (1 - zrqvyk04ycyoucxaoq2chdogi) not valid after Thu, 26 Sep 2024 08:38:00 UTC, and it is currently Fri, 21 Nov 2025 13:21:18 CET: x509: certificate has expired or is not yet valid: 
  Is Manager: false
  Node Address: <server_ip>
 Runtimes: io.containerd.runc.v2 runc
 Default Runtime: runc
 Init Binary: docker-init
 containerd version: fcd43222d6b07379a4be9786bda52438f0dd16a1
 runc version: v1.3.3-0-gd842d771
 init version: de40ad0
 Security Options:
  apparmor
  seccomp
   Profile: builtin
  cgroupns
 Kernel Version: 5.15.0-161-generic
 Operating System: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
 OSType: linux
 Architecture: x86_64
 CPUs: 8
 Total Memory: 32.1GiB
 Name: <server_name>
 ID: ****:****:****:****:...
 Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
 Debug Mode: false
 Username: <username>
 Experimental: false
 Insecure Registries:
  ::1/128
  127.0.0.0/8
 Live Restore Enabled: false
 Firewall Backend: iptables

Anything else?

No response

[ndeloof]

docker compose 2.5 is terribly outdated.
Minimum supported API is a deamon configuration parameter, so you should be able to let it accept older clients. But you really should consider using a recent release.
See https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ for recommended installation.