Wait.forHealthCheck timout, but docker ps says "healthy"?! 🤔 #12143

mkarg · 2026-10-28T18:31:47Z

mkarg
Oct 28, 2026

I have set up a simple GenericContainer, and try to wait for it to finish booting.

Using Wait.forLogMessage works pretty well, but Wait.forHealthCheck always runs into timeout. One thinks that the container would not become healthy within one minute, so I set up the exact same image with exact same configuration manually using docker run, and guess what, docker ps says healthy! 😲 I even used .withLogConsumer to "see" what is going on, and the container really says that it has booted successfully and is healthy! 🤯

This is perfectly reproducible on my laptop, and I am really running out of ideas why Testcontainers thinks the container is not healthy?! 🤔

g4lb · 2026-10-28T19:02:03Z

g4lb
Oct 28, 2026

Check the HEALTHCHECK interval of the image:

docker inspect --format '{{json .Config.Healthcheck}}' <image>

Docker runs the first check only after one interval. Wait.forHealthcheck() stops after 60 seconds by default. If the interval is longer, the container becomes healthy too late. docker ps shows "healthy" because you look at it later.

Set a longer timeout:

.waitingFor(Wait.forHealthcheck().withStartupTimeout(Duration.ofMinutes(3)))

I tested this with Testcontainers 2.0.5 and HEALTHCHECK --interval=70s. With the default timeout, the start failed after 60 seconds. With a 2-minute timeout, the container was healthy after 78 seconds.

0 replies

mkarg · 2026-10-30T15:27:05Z

mkarg
Oct 30, 2026
Author

I am using .waitingFor(Wait.forHealthcheck().withStartupTimeout(Duration.ofMinutes(3))); with HEALTHCHECK --start-period=5s CMD ..., and manual call of docker reports healthy after five seconds, while Testcontainers still reports timeout after 3 minutes.

2 replies

g4lb Oct 30, 2026

I tested --start-period=5s with Testcontainers 2.0.5. The container was healthy after 7 seconds.

While Testcontainers waits, please send the output of:

docker inspect --format '{{json .State.Health}}' <container-id>
docker version

mkarg Oct 31, 2026
Author

Thank you for your kind help so far. 👍

In fact the problem has gone meanwhile. It simply was a port mismatch within the container image itself, which happend only under very specific cases - which I happend to have in my specific test. Nothing of the chain of effects was related to or actually caused by Testcontainers.

Having said that, closing the discussion hereby.

Again, thanks for everything! ❤️

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Wait.forHealthCheck timout, but docker ps says "healthy"?! 🤔 #12143

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mkarg Oct 28, 2026

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