How I Fixed: Error response from daemon: Get https://registry.example.com/v2/: unauthorized: HTTP Basic: Access denied

OK – silly problem time.

A while back I force reset the password of one of my automated CI users. For a variety of reasons, I never checked that this had worked properly.

When I went to log in via the command line today, I was getting this:

➜  docker login -u myuser registry.example.com
Password: 
Error response from daemon: Get https://registry.example.com/v2/: unauthorized: HTTP Basic: Access denied

Very confusing.

I hard reset the user’s password via the GitLab Admin Panel, but still the problem persisted.

Simple fix: log in as this user via the web GUI.

Once you do that, you should see the password change prompt. Change your password there, and et voila, you can now login from the command line again.

It would be useful if the service offered a better message around this occurrence, but I’m guessing it’s a bit of a weird edge case. I’m actually not sure if the issue lies with GitLab or the Docker Registry image honestly.

Either way, hopefully that solves your problem.