Troubleshooting timedatectl and hostnamectl failed to activate service: timed out

[Sean Caron]

Hi everyone,

I'm on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, kernel version 5.4.0-163-generic, systemd 245
(245.4-4ubuntu3.22).

I have some systems where I am receiving the following error messages when
people attempt to use timedatectl or hostnamectl:


Failed to query server: Failed to activate service
'org.freedesktop.timedate1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)

Failed to query system properties: Failed to activate service
'org.freedesktop.hostname1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)


I tried setting SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL=debug and rerunning the commands and it
didn't really give me anything useful for determining the root cause of the
issue. Here's an example of that output for timedatectl status:


Bus n/a: changing state UNSET → OPENING
Bus n/a: changing state OPENING → AUTHENTICATING
Bus n/a: changing state AUTHENTICATING → HELLO
Sent message type=method_call sender=n/a destination=org.freedesktop.DBus
path=/org/freedesktop/DBus interface=org.freedesktop.DBus member=Hello
cookie=1 reply_cookie=0 signature=n/a error-name=n/a error-message=n/a
Got message type=method_return sender=org.freedesktop.DBus
destination=:1.15318 path=n/a interface=n/a member=n/a cookie=1
reply_cookie=1 signature=s error-name=n/a error-message=n/a
Bus n/a: changing state HELLO → RUNNING
Sent message type=method_call sender=n/a
destination=org.freedesktop.timedate1 path=/org/freedesktop/timedate1
interface=org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties member=GetAll cookie=2
reply_cookie=0 signature=s error-name=n/a error-message=n/a
Got message type=error sender=org.freedesktop.DBus destination=:1.15318
path=n/a interface=n/a member=n/a cookie=3 reply_cookie=2 signature=s
error-name=org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut error-message=Failed to
activate service 'org.freedesktop.timedate1': timed out
(service_start_timeout=25000ms)
Failed to query server: Failed to activate service
'org.freedesktop.timedate1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)
Bus n/a: changing state RUNNING → CLOSED


I read that sometimes these issues can be caused by filesystem permissions
on subdirectories in /var such as /var/tmp or /var/lib/systemd but I
checked these and compared against a working system and I don't see any
obvious differences.

I have tried using strace on timedatectl and hostnamectl to try and see
what's hanging things up but that hasn't really provided any fruitful
direction, either.

I didn't really know this was occurring until an end user reported it to me
so I don't necessarily know how long the issue has been occurring or have a
change in mind that could have broken things. I'm not sure if the upgrade
from Ubuntu 18 to Ubuntu 20 broke it, or if some security configuration
broke it. Or perhaps there is a missing dependency package on the broken
systems?

Could anyone out there please provide a little bit more guidance on how I
might troubleshoot this and determine the root cause of the issue? I
really hate to bother folks here but I'm feeling stuck.

Thank you!

Sean
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/attachments/20231213/99e9031d/attachment.htm>