cryptonomic.net

A strange problem

systemd user instance died

I normally keep emacs running using a systemd service unit. It runs in the systemd user instance, as controlled by systemctl --user.

Earlier today the entire systemd user unit crashed. I don't understand why. (Probably something I did.) Here are some symptoms:

d@fifty:~$ systemctl --user status
Failed to read server status: Input/output error

d@fifty:~$ systemctl --user
Failed to list units: Process org.freedesktop.systemd1 exited with status 1

It took a long time searching to find anything helpful. Finally, I found this helpful comment by Michael Schmidt, which suggested to run the following:

d@fifty:~$ systemctl status user@$(id -u)
● user@1000.service - User Manager for UID 1000
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/user@.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)

May 15 20:42:33 fifty systemd[2197]: Closed GnuPG cryptographic agent (access for web browsers).
May 15 20:42:33 fifty systemd[2197]: Closed GnuPG cryptographic agent and passphrase cache (restricted).
May 15 20:42:33 fifty systemd[2197]: Closed D-Bus User Message Bus Socket.
May 15 20:42:33 fifty systemd[2197]: Closed GnuPG cryptographic agent and passphrase cache.
May 15 20:42:33 fifty systemd[2197]: Closed GnuPG network certificate management daemon.
May 15 20:42:33 fifty systemd[2197]: Reached target Shutdown.
May 15 20:42:33 fifty systemd[2197]: Starting Exit the Session...
May 15 20:42:33 fifty systemd[2197]: Stopped target Paths.
May 15 20:42:33 fifty systemd[2197]: Stopped target Timers.
May 15 20:42:33 fifty systemd[2197]: Received SIGRTMIN+24 from PID 12901 (kill).

Well, there's the problem.

d@fifty:~$ ps 12901
PID USER   TT       %MEM %CPU  STARTED CMD

No idea what that is or was. But in any case, the fix is easy:

d@fifty:~$ sudo systemctl start user@$(id -u)

After which everything is as it should be:

d@fifty:~$ systemctl status user@$(id -u)
● user@1000.service - User Manager for UID 1000
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/user@.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2019-05-15 21:42:56 EDT; 8s ago
 Main PID: 15936 (systemd)
   Status: "Startup finished in 4.510s."
    Tasks: 6
   CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service
       ├─dbus.service
       │ └─15956 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --session --address=systemd: --nofork --nopidfile --systemd-activation
       ├─emacs.service
       │ ├─15942 /usr/bin/emacs --daemon
       │ └─15991 /usr/bin/aspell -a -m -B --encoding=utf-8
       └─init.scope
         ├─15936 /lib/systemd/systemd --user
         └─15937 (sd-pam)