Comment 24 for bug 1375836

I'd be very surprised if this report is related to https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1397065 -- it just looks like the same symptoms but not cause. (/etc/services isn't mentioned in the other report, and no upstart service dependency loop is reported here.)

Check dmesg output; there may be additional information there.

Try lsattr /etc/services -- the file may have been set immutable.

Try to move /etc/services out of the way by hand. Not much should care about the contents, so there's no real risk to trying to move a new services file in by hand. If you get errors, try moving other files in /etc/.