systemctl shows 'errors'

[T.C. Hollingsworth]

Alexander Volovics wrote:

> Investigating systemctl I came across the following:
> 
> systemctl list-units --type=service --all |grep error
> 
> dbus-org.bluez.service    error  inactive dead  dbus-org.bluez.service
> livesys-late.service      error  inactive dead  livesys-late.service
> openct.service            error  inactive dead  openct.service
> 
> The number of services listed with LOAD = error is not constant.
> Sometimes I have seen more.
> 
> Is this 'standard' behaviour or something that needs correcting?

Yes, this is okay. The '--all' switch makes a lot of units appear that you 
need not be concerned about unless you're debugging a systemd unit 
configuration file.

They are listed because another service configured them as an ordering 
dependency, which means it wants to start before or after one of the above 
services start, if it exists.  It does not actually require them to be 
present.

Incidentally, 'error' means that systemd had a problem loading or parsing a 
unit file.  'failed' indicates that it tried to start a service, but the 
service itself has a problem.  So, for normal troubleshooting, this command 
is probably more useful:

 $ systemctl list-units | grep failed

> 
> Alexander
> 
> 

-T.C.