Docker compose build hangs running .net project

[nikjuice]

Description

After the Ubuntu runner image was updated to 2025.07.28.1
(https://github.com/actions/runner-images/releases/tag/ubuntu22%2F20250728.1),
our Docker Compose builds began to consistently hang and eventually time out after 60 minutes.

This issue occurs during random steps of the pipeline, most frequently during unit test execution.

We run compose from powershelltask

- powershell: |    
      docker compose -f docker-compose.yml build api

We use FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:8.0 in our docker file.

We initially suspected a relation to actions/runner-images#12685, and attempted the following workarounds without success:

• Upgraded Docker Compose to 2.38.2
• Downgraded Docker Compose to 2.36.2
• Downgraded Docker Buildx to 0.25.0

Platforms affected

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

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025

Image version and build link

https://github.com/actions/runner-images/releases/tag/ubuntu22%2F20250728.1

Is it regression?

yes

Expected behavior

Build not hangs

Actual behavior

Build hangs

Repro steps

Run docker compose that used .net8 sdk and build .net project

[hemanthmanga]

Hi @nikjuice, Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We will look into this issue and will update you after investigation.

[nikjuice]

We tried some random things and what helped is to install .net SDK 6 or 8 on the host machine and remove unit test project (more than 2000 unit tests) from compose build. If we try one of this this action it still hangs. Also pipeline for other project that is very small, but use the same setup of tools is fine. So it seems it might be related to the size of the project.

Update:
We have switched to the self hosted agent that it still on version https://github.com/actions/runner-images/releases/tag/ubuntu24%2F20250720.1 and that worked fine.

[Eonfuzz]

We're having our dotnet projects also stall out on projects that would take ~6 minutes to docker compose as of this update, it's also only affecting larger projects.

[davidrperry]

@Eonfuzz we have managed to work around the problem by disabling buildkit in the pipeline. It appears to be caused by an issue there.

We're running via PSCore and added the following env var before running build

$env:DOCKER_BUILDKIT = "0" # Disable BuildKit to avoid .NET publish bug

[Eonfuzz]

@Eonfuzz we have managed to work around the problem by disabling buildkit in the pipeline. It appears to be caused by an issue there.

We're running via PSCore and added the following env var before running build

$env:DOCKER_BUILDKIT = "0" # Disable BuildKit to avoid .NET publish bug

Beautiful, a similar approach works for us. Here's how to do it with DockerCompose tasks

- task: DockerCompose@1
  displayName: Build Images
  inputs:
    dockerComposeFile: '**/docker-compose.yml'
    # Use DOCKER_BUILDKIT=0 to avoid issues with Docker BuildKit in a bad Ubuntu image update (6/8/2025)
    dockerComposeFileArgs: DOCKER_BUILDKIT=0
    projectName: ${PROJECT_NAME}
    qualifyImageNames: false
    action: 'Build services'
    additionalImageTags: '$(Build.BuildNumber)'
    arguments: '--build-arg FEED_ACCESSTOKEN=$(VSS_NUGET_ACCESSTOKEN)'

[p1luz]

@Eonfuzz we have managed to work around the problem by disabling buildkit in the pipeline. It appears to be caused by an issue there.

We're running via PSCore and added the following env var before running build

$env:DOCKER_BUILDKIT = "0" # Disable BuildKit to avoid .NET publish bug

A similar approch works for us too.

Envs:
USE_DOCKER_BUILDKIT: 0 # Set to 0 to avoid issues with Docker BuildKit in a bad Ubuntu image update (6/8/2025)

• script: |
  DOCKER_BUILDKIT=$(USE_DOCKER_BUILDKIT) docker compose -f $(DOCKER_COMPOSE_FILE_NAME) build
  displayName: 'Build docker compose services'