Zigbee2mqtt: Cant start Zigbee2mqtt as service

[Wibias]

Bug Report

Soo. I can start zigbee2mqtt with "npm start" from /opt/zigbee2mqtt. But when I try to start it as a service I get this Error:

Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/zigbee2mqtt.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sat 2019-05-04 14:57:45 CEST; 3s ago
Process: 24824 ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm start (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)
Main PID: 24824 (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)

May 04 14:57:45 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May 04 14:57:45 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
May 04 14:57:45 hassbian systemd[1]: Stopped zigbee2mqtt.
May 04 14:57:45 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
May 04 14:57:45 hassbian systemd[1]: Failed to start zigbee2mqtt.
May 04 14:57:45 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Unit entered failed state.
May 04 14:57:45 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

My service file looks like this:

[Unit]
Description=zigbee2mqtt
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm start
WorkingDirectory=/opt/zigbee2mqtt
StandardOutput=inherit
StandardError=inherit
Restart=always
User=pi

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

I already deleted /opt/zigbee2mqtt and reinstalled it. Still the same error message.

Also tried as user "pi" and "root".

No clue where to go from here. Can anyone help me with this?

[Koenkk]

Could you post the zigbee2mqtt log when starting as a service? Log can be found in the data/log folder.

[Wibias]

There is no log being created when starting it as a service. Its just created when starting it with npm start from the folder.

[Koenkk]

What is the output of sudo journalctl -u zigbee2mqtt.service -f?

[Wibias]

Tried that already to see if it gives me more information but the same as the above error message unfortunately.

May 05 19:42:19 hassbian systemd[1]: Started zigbee2mqtt.
May 05 19:42:19 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=203/EXEC
May 05 19:42:19 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Unit entered failed state.
May 05 19:42:19 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May 05 19:42:19 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
May 05 19:42:19 hassbian systemd[1]: Stopped zigbee2mqtt.
May 05 19:42:19 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
May 05 19:42:19 hassbian systemd[1]: Failed to start zigbee2mqtt.
May 05 19:42:19 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Unit entered failed state.
May 05 19:42:19 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

[Koenkk]

Can you try running with:

[Unit]
Description=zigbee2mqtt
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm start
WorkingDirectory=/opt/zigbee2mqtt
StandardOutput=/tmp/zigbee2mqtt
StandardError=/tmp/zigbee2mqtt
Restart=always
User=pi

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

and post the content of /tmp/zigbee2mqtt ?

[Wibias]

There is nothing being created in /tmp when starting/restarting the service with that.

[Koenkk]

Is there something logged to syslog when starting the service? (tail -f /var/log/syslog)

[Wibias]

Actually, it does. Something odd, tbh.

May  7 18:19:27 hassbian systemd[1]: Started zigbee2mqtt.
May  7 18:19:27 hassbian systemd[11421]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed at step EXEC spawning /usr/bin/npm: No such file or directory
May  7 18:19:27 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=203/EXEC
May  7 18:19:27 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Unit entered failed state.
May  7 18:19:27 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May  7 18:19:28 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
May  7 18:19:28 hassbian systemd[1]: Stopped zigbee2mqtt.

That's pretty odd. Because:

The only thing that's not normal compared to the other files in there is that npm is red colored. Not sure what that means, though.

[Koenkk]

[Unit]
Description=zigbee2mqtt
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=npm start
WorkingDirectory=/opt/zigbee2mqtt
StandardOutput=/tmp/zigbee2mqtt
StandardError=/tmp/zigbee2mqtt
Restart=always
User=pi

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Wibias]

That gives me:

May 07 18:44:23 hassbian systemd[1]: [/etc/systemd/system/zigbee2mqtt.service:6] Executable path is not absolute, ignoring: npm start

[Koenkk]

What is the output of which npm

[Wibias]

Yea I just tried that, as it came to my mind aswell. Its giving me:

/home/pi/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.3/bin/npm

So I tried something like this:

[Unit]
Description=zigbee2mqtt
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/home/pi/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.3/bin/npm start
WorkingDirectory=/opt/zigbee2mqtt
StandardOutput=inherit
StandardError=inherit
Restart=always
User=pi

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

And that gives me in syslog:

May  7 18:54:11 hassbian systemd[1]: Started zigbee2mqtt.
May  7 18:54:11 hassbian npm[12213]: /usr/bin/env: ‘node’: Too many levels of symbolic links
May  7 18:54:11 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=127/n/a
May  7 18:54:11 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Unit entered failed state.
May  7 18:54:11 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May  7 18:54:12 hassbian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
May  7 18:54:12 hassbian systemd[1]: Stopped zigbee2mqtt.

ls -All /home/pi/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.3/bin/npm

lrwxrwxrwx 1 pi pi 38 Mar  5 16:07 /home/pi/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.3/bin/npm -> ../lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js

Also what I just notice that, things like:

npm install npm -g

works but

sudo npm install npm -g throws out sudo: npm: command not found

Maybe thats a hint in the right direction idk.

[Koenkk]

Did you follow the installing section of http://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/getting_started/running_zigbee2mqtt.html ?

[Wibias]

Yes.

[Wibias]

Well I just fixed it myself. It turned out that my npm installation was broken somehow.

I completly uninstalled npm and nodejs, like did some google research where all the files are located. And then reinstalled it with:

sudo curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo -E bash -

sudo apt-get install -y nodejs git make g++ gcc

Now its working.

Thanks for the help!

[pqpxo]

I had this issue and solved it by changing:

ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm start

To

ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/npm start

[trikis1]

I have the same problem but y I change
ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm start
to
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/npm start
I change error
systemctl status zigbee2mqtt.service
● zigbee2mqtt.service - zigbee2mqtt
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/zigbee2mqtt.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2020-01-03 18:19:48 CET; 7s ago
Process: 8946 ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 8946 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

to
zigbee2mqtt.service - zigbee2mqtt
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/zigbee2mqtt.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2020-01-03 18:16:04 CET; 6s ago
Process: 8197 ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/npm start (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)
Main PID: 8197 (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)
somebody can help me?
Sorry

[trikis1]

I solved my problem yet, I change user=pi to user=root
easy.

[halicek]

I had very similar problem with similar solution (adding "local" to the path) so I will post my log from raspbian for somebody to find it here and to find the solution as well.

-- Logs begin at Thu 2020-01-23 20:17:01 CET. --
Jan 23 21:16:07 raspberrypi systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jan 23 21:16:07 raspberrypi systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Service RestartSec=100ms expired, scheduling restart.
Jan 23 21:16:07 raspberrypi systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Jan 23 21:16:07 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Stopped zigbee2mqtt.
Jan 23 21:16:07 raspberrypi systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Jan 23 21:16:07 raspberrypi systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jan 23 21:16:07 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Failed to start zigbee2mqtt.

[oyooyo]

I just had a similar problem, the zigbee2mqtt systemd service wouldn't start at bootup. In my case, I found some zigbee2mqtt:error lines stating Error while opening serialport 'Error: Error: Device or resource busy, cannot open /dev/... lines in the syslog. Close to these lines there were some other log messages which read ModemManager: <warn> Could not grab port (tty/ttyACM0): 'Cannot add port 'tty/ttyACM0', unhandled serial type'.

I assumed that the problem with zigbee2mqtt not starting might have something to do with the zigbee2mqtt and ModemManager systemd services both trying to access /dev/ttyACM0 at the same time. I tried disabling the ModemManager service via sudo systemctl disable ModemManager.service (I assume I don't need that service anyway), and on the next boot the problem was indeed solved.

[EpicLPer]

More info on this:

If you install it on a Pi Zero which requires you to use THIS GUIDE to install NPM instead of the one linked on the Z2M Wiki Page you HAVE to replace the ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm start with ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/npm start since that guide installs the npm binaries into another folder than the usual installer does.

@Koenkk A mention of this on the installation page would be nice so others don't fall into the same trap :D

[Koenkk]

@EpicLPer updated, thanks!