Release date not found in private docker registry - minimumReleaseAge breaks creation of merge requests

[artemis-mike]

How are you running Renovate?

Self-hosted Renovate CLI

Which platform you running Renovate on?

GitLab (.com or self-hosted)

Which version of Renovate are you using?

43.108.1

Please tell us more about your question or problem

We're syncing most of the docker images we use to our private docker registry (docker.io) to perform security checks and attestation. Renovate can connect to this registry just fine and suggest updates. But it seems we can't get renovate to use the timestamp so we can use the minimumReleaseAge option.

Debug logs show errors like

[...]
2026-04-07T13:04:21.425102Z 01O DEBUG: Marking 10 release(s) as pending, as they do not have a releaseTimestamp and we're running with minimumReleaseAgeBehaviour=timestamp-required (repository=helmfile)
2026-04-07T13:04:21.425109Z 01O        "depName": "<our-private-registry>/elasticsearch_elasticsearch",
2026-04-07T13:04:21.425112Z 01O        "versions": [
2026-04-07T13:04:21.425116Z 01O          "9.3.2",
[...]

When checking the upstream image against the synced with regctl image config there is no difference.

This breaks our update process, as we don't get merge requests if no timestamp can't be found, but we also want to delay the creation of merge requests be using minimumReleaseAge.

Logs (if relevant)

No response

[viceice]

• feat(docker): determine releaseTimestamp for a given Docker digest via Registry APIs #38656

[itxashancode]

I'd check if the registry is returning a created timestamp in the image manifest. If it's missing, Renovate can't use minimumReleaseAge. Try running:

regctl image manifest <your-registry>/elasticsearch_elasticsearch:9.3.2

Look for a created field in the history array. If it's not there, the registry isn't attaching timestamps - which is common with some private setups. In that case, you have two options:

1. Disable minimumReleaseAge for that source
2. Or set minimumReleaseAgeBehaviour: "age-required" so Renovate falls back to age-based filtering without timestamps

If the timestamps exist upstream but not in your mirror, the sync process might be stripping them - check your mirroring tool's config.