start request repeated too quickly - systemd

Question

I'm writing a bash-script but I often face this issue.
When I try to start or stop a service I often get:
start request repeated too quickly
How can I solve this problem?
It's for example when I try to restart docker or openshift-origin master.
sudo service origin-master restart
● origin-master.service - Origin Master Service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/origin-master.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: failed (Result: start-limit) since Wed 2016-02-17 08:22:11 UTC; 44s ago
Docs: https://github.com/openshift/origin
Process: 2296 ExecStart=/usr/bin/openshift start master --config=${CONFIG_FILE} $OPTIONS (code=exited, status=255)
Main PID: 2296 (code=exited, status=255)
Feb 17 08:22:10 ip-172-xx-xx-xx.eu-central-1.compute.internal systemd[1]: origin-master.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=255/n/a
Feb 17 08:22:10 ip-172-xx-xx-xx.eu-central-1.compute.internal systemd[1]: Failed to start Origin Master Service.
Feb 17 08:22:10 ip-172-xx-xx-xx.eu-central-1.compute.internal systemd[1]: Unit origin-master.service entered failed state.
Feb 17 08:22:10 ip-172-xx-xx-xx.eu-central-1.compute.internal systemd[1]: origin-master.service failed.
Feb 17 08:22:11 ip-172-xx-xx-xx.eu-central-1.compute.internal systemd[1]: origin-master.service holdoff time over, scheduling restart.
Feb 17 08:22:11 ip-172-xx-xx-xx.eu-central-1.compute.internal systemd[1]: start request repeated too quickly for origin-master.service
Feb 17 08:22:11 ip-172-xx-xx-xx.eu-central-1.compute.internal systemd[1]: Failed to start Origin Master Service.
Feb 17 08:22:11 ip-172-xx-xx-xx.eu-central-1.compute.internal systemd[1]: Unit origin-master.service entered failed state.
Feb 17 08:22:11 ip-172-xx-xx-xx.eu-central-1.compute.internal systemd[1]: origin-master.service failed.
My script is just doing:
if [ $1 = "-u" ]
then
sudo service origin-master restart
fi
A manual restart is possible before I've executed the script. But after it it remains giving the error

Answer 1

This is a "feature" of systemctl. There is a parameter in the file that limits the restart frequency in seconds. Lower this while testing.
Edit the file
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/<your service here>
my example:
Restart=on-failure
StartLimitBurst=2
# Restart, but not more than once every 10 minutes
#StartLimitInterval=600
# Restart, but not more than once every 30s (for testing purposes)
StartLimitInterval=30

Answer 2

I suggest you familiarize yourself with systemd. That's what you're using under the hood when you run service. As #chepner says, the service is failing (as you can see from the second line of the log), and it's being restarted too quickly, triggering the error.
Try running journalctl -u origin-master.service to figure out why the error is happening.
Also, systemd cat origin-master.service will show you the Service Unit file that describes your service - there might be errors.

Answer 3

I had this problem on Ubuntu 20.4. And by adding execute permission to the ExecStart file the problem was solved.
sudo chmod +x /path/to/execfile

Answer 4

I have faced same issue and solved this problem like that:
if /var/log/mysql folder not exists:
sudo mkdir /var/log/mysql
and then give permission this folder:
sudo chown -R mysql:mysql /var/log/mysql
sudo systemctl stop mysql
sudo systemctl start mysql

Answer 5

in my case, there was a typing mistake in this file -> /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/<your service here> so after tweaking necessary parameters, if you are still facing the same error, don't forget to check the file

Answer 6

In my case , is my /etc/docker/daemon.json file format error, when i make this true, run systemctl start docker the server start success.

Answer 7

Please try running the command :
td-agent --dry-run
This will give you the root cause.