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Around last weekend my snaps stopped working including Ubuntu Software. It turned out that suddenly snap wasn't installed any longer. Also audio completely stopped working, which at that point I assumed was somehow related to snap since I had installed "PulseAudio Volume Control (gtk)" from the Ubuntu Software store.

I reinstalled snap with apt install snap and all my snaps were working fine again. Audio still wouldn't work even after multiple reboots. Manually starting Pulse with pulseaudio --start fixes the audio until the next reboot. I started investigating why the Pulse daemon isn't being started after booting, but mind you I have zero knowledge of systemd. Naturally I didn't mess with systemd prior to this problem. So I guess some update caused it?

Apparently upowerd and the user-serivices fail to start after booting:

$ systemctl --failed
UNIT              LOAD   ACTIVE SUB    DESCRIPTION                
upower.service    loaded failed failed Daemon for power management
user@1000.service loaded failed failed User Manager for UID 1000  
user@125.service  loaded failed failed User Manager for UID 125 

$ id -un 1000 yields my Username and $ id -un 125 yields gdm (Gnome Display Manager?).

Trying to connect to upowerd yields the following:

$ upower
(upower:4492): UPower-WARNING **: 17:02:55.585: Cannot connect to upowerd: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.UPower: Timeout was reached

Trying to call any systemctl command with the --user flag will always return Process org.freedesktop.systemd1 exited with status 1.

I checked all 3 service's status:

$ systemctl status user@1000
user@1000.service - User Manager for UID 1000
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/user@.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
  Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/user@.service.d
           └─timeout.conf
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sat 2020-11-07 17:52:27 CET; 53min left
     Docs: man:user@.service(5)
  Process: 1307 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd --user (code=exited, status=224/PAM)
 Main PID: 1307 (code=exited, status=224/PAM)

Nov 07 17:52:27 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: user@1000.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=22> Nov 07 17:52:27 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1307]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_umask.so Nov 07 17:52:27 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: user@1000.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'. Nov 07 17:52:27 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1307]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_systemd.so): /lib/security/pam_sys> Nov 07 17:52:27 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1307]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_systemd.so Nov 07 17:52:27 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1307]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_cap.so): /lib/security/pam_cap.so:> Nov 07 17:52:27 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1307]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_cap.so Nov 07 17:52:27 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1307]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_gnome_keyring.so): /lib/security/p> Nov 07 17:52:27 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1307]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_gnome_keyring.so Nov 07 17:52:27 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: Failed to start User Manager for UID 1000.

$ systemctl status user@125
user@125.service - User Manager for UID 125
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/user@.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
  Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/user@.service.d
           └─timeout.conf
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sat 2020-11-07 17:52:16 CET; 52min left
     Docs: man:user@.service(5)
  Process: 943 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd --user (code=exited, status=224/PAM)
 Main PID: 943 (code=exited, status=224/PAM)

Nov 07 17:52:16 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[943]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_umask.so
Nov 07 17:52:16 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: user@125.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=224>
Nov 07 17:52:16 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[943]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_systemd.so): /lib/security/pam_syst>
Nov 07 17:52:16 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: user@125.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 07 17:52:16 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[943]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_systemd.so
Nov 07 17:52:16 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[943]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_cap.so): /lib/security/pam_cap.so: >
Nov 07 17:52:16 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[943]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_cap.so
Nov 07 17:52:16 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[943]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_gnome_keyring.so): /lib/security/pa>
Nov 07 17:52:16 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[943]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_gnome_keyring.so
Nov 07 17:52:16 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: Failed to start User Manager for UID 125.

So PAM is some kind of authentication which should take place after booting, yet fails somehow? How can I manually make PAM make its authentication?

$ systemctl status upower
upower.service - Daemon for power management
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/upower.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: failed (Result: signal) since Sat 2020-11-07 16:53:14 CET; 3min 26s ago
     Docs: man:upowerd(8)
  Process: 3163 ExecStart=/usr/lib/upower/upowerd (code=killed, signal=SYS)
 Main PID: 3163 (code=killed, signal=SYS)

Nov 07 16:53:14 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: upower.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5. Nov 07 16:53:14 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: Stopped Daemon for power management. Nov 07 16:53:14 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: upower.service: Start request repeated too quickly. Nov 07 16:53:14 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: upower.service: Failed with result 'signal'. Nov 07 16:53:14 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: Failed to start Daemon for power management.

Checking the systemd-logs shows me, that it tries to start upowerd 5 times and gives up after it fails repeatedly (redacted to only show 1 entry which repeats 5 times):

$ journalctl -xe
Nov 07 17:02:30 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: Starting Daemon for power management...
-- Subject: A start job for unit upower.service has begun execution
-- 
-- A start job for unit upower.service has begun execution.
-- 
-- The job identifier is 2811.
Nov 07 17:02:30 <MyUser-MyComputer> audit[4495]: SECCOMP auid=4294967295 uid=0 gid=0 ses=4294967295 pid=4495 comm="upowerd" exe="/usr/lib/upower/upowerd" sig=31 arch=c000003e syscall=12 compat=0 ip=0x>
Nov 07 17:02:30 <MyUser-MyComputer> kernel: kauditd_printk_skb: 16 callbacks suppressed
Nov 07 17:02:30 <MyUser-MyComputer> kernel: audit: type=1326 audit(1604764950.576:8019): auid=4294967295 uid=0 gid=0 ses=4294967295 pid=4495 comm="upowerd" exe="/usr/lib/upower/upowerd" sig=31 arch=c0>
Nov 07 17:02:30 <MyUser-MyComputer> systemd[1]: upower.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=31/SYS
-- Subject: Unit process exited
-- 
-- An ExecStart= process belonging to unit upower.service has exited.
-- 
-- The process' exit code is 'killed' and its exit status is 31.

I'm at my wits' end here. I tried resetting the failed services systemctl reset-failed and rebooting but it changed nothing?

Any idea what I could try or which log I should check?

Niklas H.
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1 Answers1

5

I had the same problem with missing snapd package and the same errors about failed services. Turns out it was looking for pam modules in /lib/security which doesn't exist on amd64. The same update quirk that has removed snapd has installed systemd:i386 on my 64 bit machine. The fix was to sudo apt install systemd:amd64 systemd-timesyncd:amd64

Please see also on launchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/aptdaemon/+bug/1903273

gw666
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  • This completely fixed my issue! Thank you so much. I can't upvote you yet on this new account but will asap. In fact I had already created the new Live Image to reinstall when you answered my question just in time. – Niklas H. Nov 09 '20 at 17:47