docker ps shows empty list

You can run the command without the -d option. So you have the output displayed.

It may be that the application failed to start.

docker ps shows (running) containers. docker images shows images.

A successfully build docker image should appear in the list which docker images generates. But only a running container (which is an instance of an image) will appear in the list from docker ps (use docker ps -a to also see stopped containers). To start a container from your image, use docker run.

For me, docker ps -a and docker images both returned an empty list even tho I had many docker containers running. I tried rebooting system with no luck. A quick sudo systemctl restart docker fixed this "bug".