Gitea Actions runner fails to connect after restart

resolved Gitea configuration Reported 2026-01-15 Verified 2026-02-25

The act_runner process fails to reconnect to Gitea after a server restart, requiring manual token regeneration.

Error Messages

connect: connection refusedtoken expired

Resolutions (1)

high confidence 18 verified

Add a restart delay and health check to your docker-compose:

act_runner:
  depends_on:
    gitea:
      condition: service_healthy
  restart: unless-stopped

Add a health check to the Gitea service to ensure it's fully ready before the runner starts.

Verified by 18 users Added 2026-01-20

Applies to: 1.22, 1.23 on docker