Did it really run?

[bondskin]

Describe the bug

Hi,

Successfully installed the latest version yesterday.
Usually the job runs every night, never an issue before.
But today it did not run with the latest release.

Am I missing something obvious?

Steps to reproduce

Latest image pulled
Schedule Cron job

Expected behavior

Scan job writes a log entry

Screenshots

No response

Environment

• Debian
• amd64
• Docker Version

Your logs

time="2025-12-10T03:07:23+01:00" level=info msg="Detected multiple Watchtower instances, initiating cleanup" count=2

time="2025-12-10T03:07:23+01:00" level=info msg="Stopping container" container=CNZDEjSUGQvzeNxYBuIyByCSoMjAACcI id=8717e958a923 signal=SIGTERM timeout=10m0s

time="2025-12-10T03:07:25+01:00" level=info msg="Removing image" image_id=f42281e507ec image_name="nickfedor/watchtower:latest" notify=yes

time="2025-12-10T03:07:25+01:00" level=info msg="Successfully cleaned up excess Watchtower instances"

time="2025-12-10T03:07:25+01:00" level=info msg="Watchtower 1.12.4 using Docker API v1.51"

time="2025-12-10T03:07:25+01:00" level=info msg="Using notifications: smtp"

time="2025-12-10T03:07:25+01:00" level=info msg="Next scheduled run: 2025-12-11 03:05:00 CET in 23 hours, 57 minutes, 34 seconds"

Additional context

No response

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🔗 Similar Issues

Possible Duplicates

• nicholas-fedor/watchtower#307

Related Issues

• nicholas-fedor/watchtower#895
• nicholas-fedor/watchtower#970
• nicholas-fedor/watchtower#838

👤 Suggested Assignees

• yubiuser
• bondskin
• einsqing

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[nicholas-fedor]

The logs that you shared show a newly updated Watchtower 1.12.4 container that is performing a normal self-cleanup after a self-update.

Generally speaking, a Watchtower container self-update occurs at the end of an update cycle, with the old/stale container creating the new one, changing the old container's name to a random string, and then finishing up the update process (i.e. sending notifications and etc).

Given the smtp notification setting, I would expect you to see a notification around the same time (2025-12-10T03:07:23+01:00) indicating corresponding update activity.

The expected "scan job log entry" would be expected in the old (probably removed) Watchtower container.

[bondskin]

Hi @nicholas-fedor ,

Thank you for the swift reply.
The self-update and such, this is all good.

I was explicitly worried about the missing scan job, or the absence of a log entry.
So this makes me difficult to triage if watchtower is running or not.

[nicholas-fedor]

Your concern is why many people have opted to utilize additional services, such as Portainer, Dozzle, etc to help with container and log management. This is a good jump-off point for understanding logging in Docker: https://docs.docker.com/engine/logging/configure/

When it comes to determining if Watchtower is running or not, there is a healthcheck that can be queried via the following command:

docker inspect --format='{{.State.Health.Status}}' <container_name_or_id>

Expected Output:

healthy

Then, there's always the option of waiting for the next scheduled run to see if the update process has run.

---

I'm moving this thread over to the discussions for the time being.