[SOLVED] Network Manager - Failed to Start Network Manager

Kaladin · 2019-01-13 21:49:21

I have been using Network Manager since I started using Arch and have not had a problem before today.

When I reboot my PC, I only get the following (from journalctl -xe):

The unit NetworkManager.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Jan 13 21:19:29 archlinux systemd[1]: Failed to start Network Manager.
-- Subject: A start job for unit NetworkManager.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
-- 
-- A start job for unit NetworkManager.service has finished with a failure.

I have seen in my pacman log that NetworkManager and Systemd were both updated today, but I tried downgrading NetworkManager and the problem remained. The only other changes that I've made recently are to use AppArmor and I installed xpad for my xbox controller.

Other than that nothing has changed, and my logs are not showing anything interesting as far as I can tell.

Last edited by Kaladin (2019-01-14 18:01:07)

Kaladin · 2019-01-14 08:53:52

Since the post I've tried a few things without luck. First of all, the output of

systemctl status NetworkManager

NetworkManager.service - Network Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service; enabled; ven>
  Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service.d
           └─NetworkManager-ovs.conf
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2019-01-13 21:19:29 UTC; 33min >
     Docs: man:NetworkManager(8)
  Process: 9901 ExecStart=/usr/bin/NetworkManager --no-daemon (code=exited, sta>
 Main PID: 9901 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Jan 13 21:19:29 archlinux systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Service RestartSe>
Jan 13 21:19:29 archlinux systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Scheduled restart>
Jan 13 21:19:29 archlinux systemd[1]: Stopped Network Manager.
Jan 13 21:19:29 archlinux systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Start request rep>
Jan 13 21:19:29 archlinux systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Failed with resul>
Jan 13 21:19:29 archlinux systemd[1]: Failed to start Network Manager.

Hardware wise, everything seems in order. lspci -v shows my ethernet controller, and I can confirm the kernel module has been loaded. I am able to connect to the internet if I manually start dhcpd and 'up' my ethernet controller.

There was also a similar thread not long ago: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=235502

However they managed to fix it by upgrading their package, and mine seems to have been caused after my latest pacman -Syu which included a NetworkManager update and also a systemd update.

Does anyone have any ideas or pointers? I'm basically out of ideas and my logs don't seem to be giving me any ideas.

Thank you.

seth · 2019-01-14 09:32:48

sudo /usr/bin/NetworkManager --no-daemon

see what happens. If you're lucky, you get better stderr or a coredump.
If not, try to gdb or strace it (from a root shell, ie. "sudo su" - ptrace and strace hate sudo)
Possibly links/dlopens a dated/broken lib.

Kaladin · 2019-01-14 18:00:11

Sooo, I got home and tried the command you suggested. It gave me:

NetworkManager-Message: 17:54:20.135: <warn>  [1547488460.1356] config: Default config file invalid: /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf: Key file contains line “:q\u000d” which is not a key-value pair, group, or comment
Failed to read configuration: /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf: Key f” which is not a key-value pair, group, or comment

So I've probably managed to accidentally open the file and and tried to close Vim and somehow it's been saved or something. I'm not sure how it happened but I removed the errant line and everything is working as normal.

Thanks for your advice, that's a neat command that I didn't know of.

Arch Linux

#1 2019-01-13 21:49:21

[SOLVED] Network Manager - Failed to Start Network Manager

#2 2019-01-14 08:53:52

Re: [SOLVED] Network Manager - Failed to Start Network Manager

#3 2019-01-14 09:32:48

Re: [SOLVED] Network Manager - Failed to Start Network Manager

#4 2019-01-14 18:00:11

Re: [SOLVED] Network Manager - Failed to Start Network Manager

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