Activation is not client-side, it's handled automatically by dbus-daemon – which either spawns the service directly or starts it as a systemd service.
In this case, check whether your logs show systemd-hostnamed.service attempting to start; either it fails to start (missing libraries? Apparmor?) or dbus-daemon fails to contact systemd (pid1 crashed?). On Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 19:45 Sean Caron <sca...@umich.edu> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I'm on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, kernel version 5.4.0-163-generic, systemd 245 > (245.4-4ubuntu3.22). > > I have some systems where I am receiving the following error messages when > people attempt to use timedatectl or hostnamectl: > > > Failed to query server: Failed to activate service > 'org.freedesktop.timedate1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms) > > Failed to query system properties: Failed to activate service > 'org.freedesktop.hostname1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms) > > > I tried setting SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL=debug and rerunning the commands and it > didn't really give me anything useful for determining the root cause of the > issue. Here's an example of that output for timedatectl status: > > > Bus n/a: changing state UNSET → OPENING > Bus n/a: changing state OPENING → AUTHENTICATING > Bus n/a: changing state AUTHENTICATING → HELLO > Sent message type=method_call sender=n/a destination=org.freedesktop.DBus > path=/org/freedesktop/DBus interface=org.freedesktop.DBus member=Hello > cookie=1 reply_cookie=0 signature=n/a error-name=n/a error-message=n/a > Got message type=method_return sender=org.freedesktop.DBus > destination=:1.15318 path=n/a interface=n/a member=n/a cookie=1 > reply_cookie=1 signature=s error-name=n/a error-message=n/a > Bus n/a: changing state HELLO → RUNNING > Sent message type=method_call sender=n/a > destination=org.freedesktop.timedate1 path=/org/freedesktop/timedate1 > interface=org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties member=GetAll cookie=2 > reply_cookie=0 signature=s error-name=n/a error-message=n/a > Got message type=error sender=org.freedesktop.DBus destination=:1.15318 > path=n/a interface=n/a member=n/a cookie=3 reply_cookie=2 signature=s > error-name=org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut error-message=Failed to > activate service 'org.freedesktop.timedate1': timed out > (service_start_timeout=25000ms) > Failed to query server: Failed to activate service > 'org.freedesktop.timedate1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms) > Bus n/a: changing state RUNNING → CLOSED > > > I read that sometimes these issues can be caused by filesystem permissions > on subdirectories in /var such as /var/tmp or /var/lib/systemd but I > checked these and compared against a working system and I don't see any > obvious differences. > > I have tried using strace on timedatectl and hostnamectl to try and see > what's hanging things up but that hasn't really provided any fruitful > direction, either. > > I didn't really know this was occurring until an end user reported it to > me so I don't necessarily know how long the issue has been occurring or > have a change in mind that could have broken things. I'm not sure if the > upgrade from Ubuntu 18 to Ubuntu 20 broke it, or if some security > configuration broke it. Or perhaps there is a missing dependency package on > the broken systems? > > Could anyone out there please provide a little bit more guidance on how I > might troubleshoot this and determine the root cause of the issue? I > really hate to bother folks here but I'm feeling stuck. > > Thank you! > > Sean >