systemctl spams journal with unnecessary logs

[Bugra Aydogar]

[Impact]

There is a recent issue reported by one of the customer where the journal is polluted by systemd with the following ignorable message;

```
systemd[1]: Cannot find unit for notify message of PID <…>, ignoring.
```

Due to the frequency of this message, it makes it difficult to read the journal for any meaningful messages, and, if persisted journal is enabled, will consume lots of storage for no reason.

[Test Plan]

After installing the new update, unless one sets the log level to debug, these messages should no longer be logged to the journal. Hence, the most direct test is actually:

$ systemctl log-level debug
$ journalctl -p debug..debug -f --grep "Cannot find unit for notify message"

Wait, or trigger the log message if one has a reliable way to do so.

[Where problems could occur]

When downgrading a log message, the biggest risk is hiding important information. However, upstream explicitly said[1] this is okay to ignore, and has downgraded the log message in future releases.

[1] https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/33583#issuecomment-2214583002

[Original Description]

Hi there,

There is a recent issue reported by one of the customer where the journal is polluted by systemd with the following ignorable message;

```
systemd[1]: Cannot find unit for notify message of PID <…>, ignoring.
```

Due to the frequency of this message, it makes it difficult to read the journal for any meaningful messages, and, if persisted journal is enabled, will consume lots of storage for no reason.

There is an upstream bug available for that; https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/33583

It would be great if the log level can be reduced.

Customer LP bug reference: LP#2130549

Thanks
Bugra

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Hello Bugra, or anyone else affected,

Accepted systemd into noble-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/systemd/255.4-1ubuntu8.12 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-noble to verification-done-noble. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-noble. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Ubuntu SRU Bot (ubuntu-sru-bot)]

All autopkgtests for the newly accepted systemd (255.4-1ubuntu8.12) for noble have finished running.
The following regressions have been reported in tests triggered by the package:

apport/2.28.1-0ubuntu3.8 (armhf, s390x)
apt/2.8.3 (amd64)
asterisk/1:20.6.0~dfsg+~cs6.13.40431414-2build5 (armhf)
at-spi2-core/2.52.0-1build1 (s390x)
casper/1.498 (amd64)
cron/3.0pl1-184ubuntu2 (amd64)
debci/3.9 (armhf)
debos/1.1.3-1ubuntu0.3 (amd64)
docker.io-app/28.2.2-0ubuntu1~24.04.1 (amd64, arm64, s390x)
fwupd/1.9.31-0ubuntu1~24.04.1 (arm64)
initramfs-tools/0.142ubuntu25.5 (armhf, s390x)
jami/unknown (armhf)
libei/1.2.1-1 (armhf)
linux-azure-6.11/6.11.0-1018.18~24.04.1 (amd64)
linux-azure-nvidia/6.8.0-1028.31 (arm64)
linux-azure-nvidia-6.14/6.14.0-1009.9 (arm64)
linux-lowlatency/6.8.0-88.89.1 (arm64)
linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.11/6.11.0-1016.17~24.04.1 (amd64, arm64)
linux-nvidia/6.8.0-1043.46 (amd64)
linux-nvidia-6.11/6.11.0-1016.16 (amd64, arm64)
linux-oem-6.14/6.14.0-1016.16 (amd64)
linux-oem-6.8/6.8.0-1032.32 (amd64)
linux-oracle-6.14/6.14.0-1017.17~24.04.1 (arm64)
logiops/unknown (armhf)
mediawiki/unknown (armhf)
munin/2.0.75-1ubuntu1 (armhf)
netplan.io/1.1.2-8ubuntu1~24.04.1 (amd64, arm64, s390x)
netplan.io/unknown (armhf)
ovn/24.03.6-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 (s390x)
puppet-agent/8.4.0-1 (armhf)
pystemd/0.13.2-1build2 (armhf)
rsyslog/8.2312.0-3ubuntu9.1 (armhf)
systemd/255.4-1ubuntu8.12 (arm64)
tinyssh/20240101-2 (armhf)
upower/1.90.3-1 (s390x)
wireshark/unknown (armhf)

Please visit the excuses page listed below and investigate the failures, proceeding afterwards as per the StableReleaseUpdates policy regarding autopkgtest regressions [1].

https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/proposed-migration/noble/update_excuses.html#systemd

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Autopkgtest_Regressions

Thank you!

[Nick Rosbrook (enr0n)]

I verified this in a container using 255.4-1ubuntu8.12 from noble-proposed:

root@n:~# apt policy systemd
systemd:
  Installed: 255.4-1ubuntu8.12
  Candidate: 255.4-1ubuntu8.12
  Version table:
 *** 255.4-1ubuntu8.12 100
        100 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-proposed/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     255.4-1ubuntu8.11 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates/main amd64 Packages
     255.4-1ubuntu8.8 500
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security/main amd64 Packages
     255.4-1ubuntu8 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/main amd64 Packages
root@n:~# journalctl -p warning -b --grep "Cannot find unit for notify message"
-- No entries --
root@n:~# journalctl -p debug -b --grep "Cannot find unit for notify message"
Dec 10 19:56:44 n systemd[1]: Cannot find unit for notify message of PID 346, ignoring.
Dec 10 19:56:44 n systemd[1]: Cannot find unit for notify message of PID 399, ignoring.

I.e., when I have debug logging enabled, I see the message at debug level, but not warning. This demonstrates the log level has been downgraded.

[Filipp Roos (rofelo)]

I can confirm that this fix is working in Ubuntu Core 24 when upgrading the binaries from the systemd and libsystemd-shared packages in the core24 snap. Thanks!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package systemd - 255.4-1ubuntu8.12

---------------
systemd (255.4-1ubuntu8.12) noble; urgency=medium

  * basic: validate timezones in get_timezones() (LP: #2125405)
  * ukify: fix insertion of padding in merged sections (LP: #2132666)
  * core: downgrade a log message from warning to debug (LP: #2130554)
  * test: skip testcase_multipath_basic_failover.
    This test has been failing on Ubuntu infrastructure for a long time.
    Leaving this alone at the moment allows other failures to potentially go
    unnoticed, because the migration reference baseline has been reset to
    fail. Skip the test to try and reset the baseline to pass.
  * d/gbp.conf: stop using wrap_cl.py

 -- Nick Rosbrook <email address hidden> Tue, 25 Nov 2025 13:16:31 -0500

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for systemd has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.