Systemd: 'Failed to start transmission-daemon.service: Unit [...] not found'

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,
1

I attempted to create a secondary instance, but after editing a service file I decided to use another client instead for now and restored the original .service file from a backup (with only cp and mv).

Since rebooting my system, transmission-daemon hasn’t started and when attempting to launch manually systemd returns the error:

Failed to start transmission-daemon.service: Unit transmission-daemon.service not found.

the systemd files and their content for reference:

  • /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/transmission-daemon.service
[Unit]
Description=Transmission BitTorrent Daemon
After=network.target

[Service]
User=transmission
Type=notify
ExecStart=/usr/bin/transmission-daemon -f --log-error
ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID
NoNewPrivileges=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
  • /etc/systemd/system/transmission-daemon.service
[Unit]
Description=Transmission BitTorrent Daemon
After=network.target

[Service]
User=user
Type=notify
ExecStart=/usr/bin/transmission-daemon -f --log-error
ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID
NoNewPrivileges=true
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

transmission-daemon.x86_64 3.00-13.fc36

2

Have you ran systemctl daemon-reload since restoring the .service file?

1 Like
3

Yes, and just ran again — the same error.

4

What errors do you see from journalctl -u transmission-daemon | tail -100 ?

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5

I suppose that only this part is relevant:

-- Boot <removed the string> --
Oct 30 19:04:52 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: transmission-daemon.service: Failed to open /etc/systemd/system/transmission-daemon.service: Permission denied
Oct 31 20:34:44 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: transmission-daemon.service: Failed to open /etc/systemd/system/transmission-daemon.service: Permission denied
6

The /usr/lib/systemd/system/transmission-daemon.service file is provided by transmission-daemon. Are you sure the service file isn’t there instead of /etc/systemd/system? Otherwise, compare against the permissions and content of that file.

3 Likes
7

The file at /etc/systemd/system/transmission-daemon.service would usually be a symlink to the file in /usr/lib/systemd/system/transmission-daemon.service

You may need to verify the file is located at /usr/lib/systemd/system/transmission-daemon.service then run systemctl disable transmission-daemon.service followed by systemctl enable --now transmission-daemon.service to properly create the link and start the daemon.

3 Likes
8

doublecheck:
ls -l /etc/systemd/system/transmission-daemon.service
is a link to:
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 51 Oct 31 19:27 /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/transmission-daemon.service -> /usr/lib/systemd/system/transmission-daemon.service

I would then remove the other transmission unit from /etc/systemd/system/transmission-daemon.service.
It looks like the file in /etc/systemd/system was modified “User=user vs User=transmission” from the default service provided with the rpm.

and then restart the service.

1 Like