> On 2026-01-22 14:33 CET Barry Scott <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On 22 Jan 2026, at 12:24, [email protected] wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > I have been running systemd for many years and in general find it > > well-behaved and easy to reason about. > > > > One thing, that drives me nuts though is timer behavior. > > > > For context, this problem has persisted for years across many different > > systemd version (currently 257) both as systemd and user timers. > > > > Today I hit the problem again even if I asked both chatgpt and claude to > > help ensure it will not happen. > > > > The problem is this: > > > > I have a (user) service and a (user) timer, that fires that service every > > day at 18:30. The timer is persistent=no. > > Yesterday, for reasons, the service should not be run, so I stopped the > > timer (around 15:00, if I remember correctly). > > Today, I want the timer to trigger the service at normal runtime (i.e. > > 18:30), and I start the timer here at around 13:00. > > > > Both being far away from the trigger time, I expected (and the llms agreed) > > that it should wait til 18:30 to fire. As stated, persistent is false, I > > specifically check that before activating the timer. > > And then (the problem), it immediately fired the service as I started the > > timer. And I won an hour's worth of cleanup :( > > > > Is that expected behavior, and if so, how do I get the behaviour that I > > wish for? > > Can you post the timer unit code please.
# /home/user/.config/systemd/user/redacted-service.timer [Unit] Description=Some redacted service name [Timer] OnCalendar=18:30:00 Persistent=false [Install] WantedBy=default.target > How exactly did you stop and then start the timer? # Service has been running for 18+ months at this time already # Yesterday, approx 3hr before timer firing systemctl --user stop redacted-service.timer # Today approx 5 hours before timer firing systemctl --user start redacted-service.timer > > Barry > > > > > Regards, > > > > Svenne
