Comment 0 for bug 1887744

On an Ubuntu 20.04 server, when I started a newly installed systemd service 'systemctl start testemail2jira.service', systemd trips on an assertion (from journalctl):

Jul 16 13:49:12 pangolin-jiraconf systemd[1]: Assertion 'u->instance' failed at src/core/load-fragment.c:4798, function unit_load_fragment(). Aborting.
Jul 16 13:49:13 pangolin-jiraconf systemd[1]: Caught <ABRT>, dumped core as pid 2906637.
Jul 16 13:49:13 pangolin-jiraconf systemd[1]: Freezing execution.

apport generates a core dump which I trust is attached.

The server still works, but my terminal keeps showing:

Failed to get properties: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)

and pauses for 25s after each command.

In case it's relevant, the <service> i was trying to start had just been symlinked into /etc/systemd/system/:

root@pangolin-jiraconf # ls -la /etc/systemd/system/testemail2jira.service
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 82 Jul 16 13:48 /etc/systemd/system/testemail2jira.service -> /opt/atlassian/jira/current/emailprocessing/testemail2jira/testemail2jira@.service

File contents:

[Unit]
Description=Check that email to %i JIRA works

[Service]
#Type=oneshot
# Note: I keep the config file, testemail2jira.json5 and rsa.* files in emailprocessing/, one directory below testemail2jira/, so that they can be version-controlled independently.
# If you want testemail2jira.json5 and rsa.* within testemail2jira/, then add testemail2jira/ to WorkingDirectory and remove it from the ExecStart command
WorkingDirectory=/opt/atlassian/%i/current/emailprocessing
ExecStart=/opt/atlassian/%i/current/emailprocessing/testemail2jira/venv/bin/python testemail2jira/testemail2jira.py
User=root

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Perhaps the problem is that my service file is a template (testemail2jira@.service), but I symlinked it as a regular 'testemail2jira.service'.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: systemd 245.4-4ubuntu3.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-39.43-generic 5.4.41
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-39-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.3
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
Date: Thu Jul 16 14:13:06 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-05-27 (49 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200423)
Lsusb: Error: command ['lsusb'] failed with exit code 1:
Lsusb-t:

Lsusb-v: Error: command ['lsusb', '-v'] failed with exit code 1:
MachineType: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009)
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.4.0-39-generic root=/dev/sda ro console=ttyS0,19200n8 net.ifnames=0
SourcePackage: systemd
SystemdFailedUnits: Error: command ['systemctl', 'status', '--full', 'Error:'] failed with exit code 1: Failed to get properties: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 04/01/2014
dmi.bios.vendor: SeaBIOS
dmi.bios.version: rel-1.12.0-0-ga698c8995f-prebuilt.qemu.org
dmi.chassis.type: 1
dmi.chassis.vendor: QEMU
dmi.chassis.version: pc-q35-3.1
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnSeaBIOS:bvrrel-1.12.0-0-ga698c8995f-prebuilt.qemu.org:bd04/01/2014:svnQEMU:pnStandardPC(Q35+ICH9,2009):pvrpc-q35-3.1:cvnQEMU:ct1:cvrpc-q35-3.1:
dmi.product.name: Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009)
dmi.product.version: pc-q35-3.1
dmi.sys.vendor: QEMU