docker login registry.gitlab.com/v2 does not work with Docker version 17.06.2-ce

Summary

Docker login with Docker version 17.06.2-ce does not work in the default version of the v2 api at registry.gitlab.com

Steps to reproduce

I am not running proxies at all and the setup has not changed on one of our server running 17.06.2-ce.

But if i force the login on the v1 api of the registry it works. I

Current behaviour on Docker version 17.06.2-ce

On the server i see

docker -v
Docker version 17.06.2-ce, build cec0b72

docker login https://registry.gitlab.com
Username: USER
Password: 
Error response from daemon: Get https://registry.gitlab.com/v2/: error parsing HTTP 403 response body: unexpected end of JSON input: ""

correct behavior

It works correctly on my PC where i run a new version of docker 19.03.12

$ docker -v
Docker version 19.03.12, build 48a66213fe

docker login registry.gitlab.com
Authenticating with existing credentials...
Login did not succeed, error: Error response from daemon: Get https://registry.gitlab.com/v2/: unauthorized: HTTP Basic: Access denied
Username (USER): USER
Password: 
WARNING! Your password will be stored unencrypted in /home/USER/.docker/config.json.
Configure a credential helper to remove this warning. See
https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/login/#credentials-store

Login Succeeded

Forcing the use of v1 api works but this might not be obvious and is unexpected

docker login https://registry.gitlab.com/v1/
Username: USER
Password: 
Login Succeeded

Possible fixes

Maybe you can detect the docker version used by clients and redirect them to the internal v1 API so it does not break on v2.