One Missing Flag Caused 156 GB Docker Volume Leak That Broke Backup Verification

A developer running nightly backups for a side project discovered their server had become unresponsive due to a completely full secondary disk partition used by Docker. Investigation revealed 57 orphaned anonymous volumes totalling 156 GB, each a leftover PostgreSQL data directory from failed backup-verification runs over 34 days. The root cause was a missing -v flag in the docker rm -f cleanup command, which removed containers but silently left behind their anonymous volumes each time a run timed out or was killed. Because the disk kept filling, each new verification attempt also failed, creating a self-reinforcing loop where the backup process sabotaged its own integrity checks. The fix required adding just the letter 'v' to the cleanup command in two places, turning docker rm -f into docker rm -fv to ensure anonymous volumes are deleted alongside their containers.