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[ARTICLE · art-103620] src=discuss.huggingface.co ↗ pub= topic=developer-tools verified=true sentiment=· neutral

Can pull some models, but not others, apparently authorization issue

Docker's model pull command fails with an 'insufficient_scope: authorization failed' error because the command resolves against Docker Hub (docker.io) instead of Hugging Face, according to a technical analysis. The fix is to use the 'hf.co/' prefix in the pull command, as documented by Docker, to route the request to Hugging Face. The analysis also notes that the repository 'ecastera/eva-dolphin-llama3-8b-spanish' appears to be a PEFT/LoRA adapter artifact, which may present a separate compatibility issue.

read2 min views1 publishedAug 19, 2026

Hmm… for now, the entry-point problem looks pretty simple, but there may still be another trap after that:

The first thing I would try is this:

docker model pull hf.co/ecastera/eva-dolphin-llama3-8b-spanish

The reason is that the error you posted does not appear to be coming from Hugging Face at all.

Your log says:

resolving docker.io/ecastera/eva-dolphin-llama3-8b-spanish:latest
...
insufficient_scope: authorization failed

So at that point Docker Model Runner is trying to resolve the name under Docker Hub ( docker.io), not under Hugging Face.

Docker’s current docker model pull documentation makes the source distinction explicit. For example:

docker model pull ai/smollm2

docker model pull hf.co/bartowski/Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-GGUF

So I would treat hf.co/

here less as “the final fix” and more as the cheapest useful routing test: first make sure the request is actually going to the source you intended.

That also explains why changing or recreating HF_TOKEN

would probably not help with the particular error in the post: the failing request shown in the log has not reached Hugging Face yet.

HF_TOKEN

is still a real and relevant Hugging Face authentication mechanism, so if the corrected command later reaches HF and gives an HF-side 401/403, then token/access becomes the right branch to investigate.

A small decision tree might be:

docker model pull hf.co/ecastera/eva-dolphin-llama3-8b-spanish
|
+-- pull succeeds
|      |
|      +-- run succeeds
|      |      -> probably done
|      |
|      +-- run/load fails
|             -> now look at model format / backend / LoRA handling
|
+-- Hugging Face-side 401 / 403
|      -> now inspect HF_TOKEN / gated or private access
|
+-- a different pull/import error
       -> that new error identifies the next failing layer

So even if the error changes, that is useful information rather than necessarily a failed fix.

There is, however, a second reason I would not assume this specific model is finished once the hf.co/

issue is fixed: the current repository looks much more like a PEFT/LoRA adapter artifact than a self-contained 8B checkpoint.

So, in short, I think there are probably two separate questions hiding here:

1. Why is the command currently failing with "authorization"?
   -> because the posted command is resolving against docker.io,
      not Hugging Face.

2. Will this particular HF repository run directly once routing is fixed?
   -> maybe, but the current repo is a PEFT/LoRA adapter-shaped artifact,
      so that is a separate compatibility question.

For the first one, the one-line test is:

docker model pull hf.co/ecastera/eva-dolphin-llama3-8b-spanish

If that changes the current docker.io/... insufficient_scope

error into something else, I would consider that progress: the new error should tell you which layer is actually next.

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