pm2 startup systemd - failed because the service did not take the steps required by its unit configuration

[MarvelousWololo]

What's going wrong?

Job for pm2-wololo.service failed because the service did not take the steps required by its unit configuration.
See "systemctl status pm2-wololo.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

How could we reproduce this issue?

Following this guide https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-a-node-js-application-for-production-on-ubuntu-18-04

Supporting information

$ pm2 report

===============================================================================
--- PM2 REPORT (Mon Sep 24 2018 04:45:23 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)) 
===============================================================================
--- Daemon -------------------------------------------------
pm2d version         : 3.1.3
node version         : 10.11.0
node path            : /usr/bin/pm2
argv                 : /usr/bin/node,/usr/lib/node_modules/pm2/lib/Daemon.js
argv0                : node
user                 : wololo
uid                  : 1000
gid                  : 1000
uptime               : 12min
===============================================================================
--- CLI ----------------------------------------------------
local pm2            : 3.1.3
node version         : 10.11.0
node path            : /usr/bin/pm2
argv                 : /usr/bin/node,/usr/bin/pm2,report
argv0                : node
user                 : wololo
uid                  : 1000
gid                  : 1000
===============================================================================
--- System info --------------------------------------------
arch                 : x64
platform             : linux
type                 : Linux
cpus                 : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2650 v4 @ 2.20GHz
cpus nb              : 1
freemem              : 545316864
totalmem             : 1033383936
home                 : /home/wololo
===============================================================================
--- PM2 list -----------------------------------------------
┌──────────┬────┬──────┬──────┬────────┬─────────┬────────┬──────┬───────────┬────────┬──────────┐
│ App name │ id │ mode │ pid  │ status │ restart │ uptime │ cpu  │ mem       │ user   │ watching │
├──────────┼────┼──────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┼──────┼───────────┼────────┼──────────┤
│ hello    │ 0  │ fork │ 2152 │ online │ 0       │ 5m     │ 0.1% │ 32.9 MB   │ wololo │ disabled │
└──────────┴────┴──────┴──────┴────────┴─────────┴────────┴──────┴───────────┴────────┴──────────┘
===============================================================================
--- Daemon logs --------------------------------------------
┌──────────┬────┬──────┬──────┬────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────┬───────────┬────────┬──────────┐
│ App name │ id │ mode │ pid  │ status │ restart │ uptime │ cpu │ mem       │ user   │ watching │
├──────────┼────┼──────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────┼───────────┼────────┼──────────┤
│ hello    │ 0  │ fork │ 2152 │ online │ 0       │ 5m     │ 0%  │ 32.9 MB   │ wololo │ disabled │
└──────────┴────┴──────┴──────┴────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────┴───────────┴────────┴──────────┘
 Use `pm2 show <id|name>` to get more details about an app

[corywheeler]

@MarvelousWololo I've hit the same issue... I'll post back if I discover anything.

[corywheeler]

@MarvelousWololo I ended up shutting down my server and starting it back up... once I did this everything seemed to be working fine.

[eegrok]

I had the same issue with the same fix @corywheeler -- I had just barely set up a new ubuntu 18.04 box, and had never rebooted it.

[soundestmammal]

I had the same issue as @corywheeler and @eegrok. I was able to get things working after a reboot. For those unfamiliar with the command it is: sudo reboot

[lplip]

@corywheeler, same here, after the reboot everything works OK. (spend two days on it...) Thanks!

[harupu]

I had the same issue. But after run command showed below, pm2 startup systemd started with no error :-)
ps aux | grep pm2 | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -9

[piavgh]

@harupu : It works for me also

[kfth]

@harupu worked for me as well :pray:

[josanescod]

@harupu
It has also worked for me
Thank you

[Perhan35]

@harupu: also worked for me. many thx

[phenomenon01]

Worded for me too

[rsalunga29]

I had the same issue. But after run command showed below, pm2 startup systemd started with no error :-)
ps aux | grep pm2 | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -9

Worked for me without the need to restart my server, thank you.

[MadHuslista]

Didn't try the ps command, but the reboot worked for me :3
Thanks!

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[izzuddin-noormy]

Dude, after hours of debugging, restart works! thanks mate

[Mortenlk]

Great. It works for me too.

[ASF-ai-tech]

I had the same issue. But after run command showed below, pm2 startup systemd started with no error :-)
ps aux | grep pm2 | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -9

tnx alot

[jgante]

I had the same problem with ubuntu 16, I need to execute pm2 resurrect every time my server has rebooted.

[favoyang]

I had the same issue. But after run command showed below, pm2 startup systemd started with no error :-)
ps aux | grep pm2 | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -9

This is the same as pm2 kill right? - just kill the pm2 master process.

Job for pm2-wololo.service failed because the service did not take the steps required by its unit configuration.
See "systemctl status pm2-wololo.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

This basically means the pm2 master process should be launched by the systemd, so it can manage it. But in most cases, if you follow the tutorial the master process is launched by yourself. That explains why it works after a restart/kill the master process - you get no pm2 running and the systemd can take over.

I suppose the correct steps to set up your server are:

1. run pm2 kill to kill the master process if it launched already.
2. run pm2 startup systemd.
3. run the command it generates on step 2
   sudo env PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin /usr/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2 startup systemd -u USERNAME --hp /home/USERNAME
4. run sudo service pm2-USERNAME start, now you have a pm2 master process managed by systemd. You can verify it with service pm2-USERNAME status.
5. run pm2 start your-ecosystem.file to start your apps.
6. run pm2 save to save your app configuration to /home/USERNAME/.pm2, so systemd launched pm2 master process can resume it from after a server restart.