Arch Linux

The supposedly missing gnome-terminal-server.service is included with gnome-terminal 3.20.2. If you run 'systemctl --user daemon-reexec', does gnome-terminal then launch properly?

No, the problem persists with the same error messages. It seems like gnome-terminal-server.service is actually missing, 'systemctl status gnome-terminal-server' returns:

● gnome-terminal-server.service
Loaded: not-found (Reason: No such file or directory)
Active: inactive (dead)

This is also the case with 3.20.1, but there the missing service doesn't cause a problem/error message.

You're missing the --user flag in your systemctl status command. Did you also forget it when you ran the command I suggested?

No, I copy/pasted your command.
I tried everything again though explicitly checking that the --user flag is set and it doesn't change the behaviour.
gnome-terminal-server.service is still not found, neither with 3.20.1 nor with 3.20.2, but only under 3.20.2 it fails to start with the original error message.

The file wasn't included with 3.20.1, and it's very much in the package list for 3.20.2:

$ bsdtar tf /pkg/bin/gnome-terminal-3.20.2-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz | grep 'systemd.*service'
usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-terminal-server.service

Does 'pacman -Qk gnome-terminal' report any missing files?

Yes, I can also find the .service file inside the package. On install, the file is successfully copied to /usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-terminal-server.service
Other than previously reported, there actually is a difference between systemctl status with and without the user flag (sorry for misreporting earlier).
The actual status is:

● gnome-terminal-server.service
Loaded: not-found (Reason: Not a directory)
Active: inactive (dead)

pacman -Qk gnome-terminal doesn't report any missing files.

"Reason: not a directory"

Something seems very wrong there... It's not clear to me how that error is thrown. What was the *exact* command you ran? What does `systemctl --user show gnome-terminal-server.service` show?

➜ ~ systemctl --user status gnome-terminal-server.service
● gnome-terminal-server.service
Loaded: not-found (Reason: Not a directory)
Active: inactive (dead)

➜ ~ systemctl --user show gnome-terminal-server.service
Restart=no
NotifyAccess=none
RestartUSec=100ms
TimeoutStartUSec=1min 30s
TimeoutStopUSec=1min 30s
RuntimeMaxUSec=infinity
WatchdogUSec=0
WatchdogTimestampMonotonic=0
FailureAction=none
PermissionsStartOnly=no
RootDirectoryStartOnly=no
RemainAfterExit=no
GuessMainPID=yes
MainPID=0
ControlPID=0
FileDescriptorStoreMax=0
NFileDescriptorStore=0
StatusErrno=0
Result=success
ExecMainStartTimestampMonotonic=0
ExecMainExitTimestampMonotonic=0
ExecMainPID=0
ExecMainCode=0
ExecMainStatus=0
MemoryCurrent=18446744073709551615
CPUUsageNSec=18446744073709551615
TasksCurrent=18446744073709551615
Delegate=no
CPUAccounting=no
CPUShares=18446744073709551615
StartupCPUShares=18446744073709551615
CPUQuotaPerSecUSec=infinity
BlockIOAccounting=no
BlockIOWeight=18446744073709551615
StartupBlockIOWeight=18446744073709551615
MemoryAccounting=no
MemoryLimit=18446744073709551615
DevicePolicy=auto
TasksAccounting=yes
TasksMax=512
UMask=0022
LimitCPU=18446744073709551615
LimitCPUSoft=18446744073709551615
LimitFSIZE=18446744073709551615
LimitFSIZESoft=18446744073709551615
LimitDATA=18446744073709551615
LimitDATASoft=18446744073709551615
LimitSTACK=18446744073709551615
LimitSTACKSoft=8388608
LimitCORE=18446744073709551615
LimitCORESoft=18446744073709551615
LimitRSS=18446744073709551615
LimitRSSSoft=18446744073709551615
LimitNOFILE=4096
LimitNOFILESoft=1024
LimitAS=18446744073709551615
LimitASSoft=18446744073709551615
LimitNPROC=30903
LimitNPROCSoft=30903
LimitMEMLOCK=1048576
LimitMEMLOCKSoft=1048576
LimitLOCKS=18446744073709551615
LimitLOCKSSoft=18446744073709551615
LimitSIGPENDING=30903
LimitSIGPENDINGSoft=30903
LimitMSGQUEUE=819200
LimitMSGQUEUESoft=819200
LimitNICE=0
LimitNICESoft=0
LimitRTPRIO=0
LimitRTPRIOSoft=0
LimitRTTIME=18446744073709551615
LimitRTTIMESoft=18446744073709551615
OOMScoreAdjust=0
Nice=0
IOScheduling=0
CPUSchedulingPolicy=0
CPUSchedulingPriority=0
TimerSlackNSec=50000
CPUSchedulingResetOnFork=no
NonBlocking=no
StandardInput=null
StandardOutput=inherit
StandardError=inherit
TTYReset=no
TTYVHangup=no
TTYVTDisallocate=no
SyslogPriority=30
SyslogLevelPrefix=yes
SyslogLevel=6
SyslogFacility=3
SecureBits=0
CapabilityBoundingSet=18446744073709551615
AmbientCapabilities=0
MountFlags=0
PrivateTmp=no
PrivateNetwork=no
PrivateDevices=no
ProtectHome=no
ProtectSystem=no
SameProcessGroup=no
UtmpMode=init
IgnoreSIGPIPE=yes
NoNewPrivileges=no
SystemCallErrorNumber=0
RuntimeDirectoryMode=0755
KillMode=control-group
KillSignal=15
SendSIGKILL=yes
SendSIGHUP=no
Id=gnome-terminal-server.service
Names=gnome-terminal-server.service
Description=gnome-terminal-server.service
LoadState=not-found
ActiveState=inactive
SubState=dead
StateChangeTimestampMonotonic=0
InactiveExitTimestampMonotonic=0
ActiveEnterTimestampMonotonic=0
ActiveExitTimestampMonotonic=0
InactiveEnterTimestampMonotonic=0
CanStart=no
CanStop=no
CanReload=no
CanIsolate=no
StopWhenUnneeded=no
RefuseManualStart=no
RefuseManualStop=no
AllowIsolate=no
DefaultDependencies=yes
OnFailureJobMode=replace
IgnoreOnIsolate=no
NeedDaemonReload=no
JobTimeoutUSec=infinity
JobTimeoutAction=none
ConditionResult=no
AssertResult=no
ConditionTimestampMonotonic=0
AssertTimestampMonotonic=0
LoadError=System.Error.ENOTDIR "Not a directory"
Transient=no
StartLimitInterval=10000000
StartLimitBurst=5
StartLimitAction=none

I have no idea. Does 'systemctl --user status' for other units in /usr/lib/systemd/user show the same ENOTDIR error?

Can you also post the output of:

strace -efile systemd-analyze verify --user gnome-terminal-server.service

I wrote this before I found the solution:

> Does 'systemctl --user status' for other units in /usr/lib/systemd/user show the same ENOTDIR error?

Some do, some don't, e.g. pulseaudio.service works fine, but redshift.service doesn't (interestingly though, both programs do work).

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I entered 'strace -o strace-gnome-terminal.txt -efile systemd-analyze verify --user gnome-terminal-server.service' and got the strace output into the file, but also the following error on stderr:

Failed to open directory /home/nini/.local/share/systemd/user: Not a directory

After moving the file, everything works fine again and a 'user' folder was created instead.
Please find attached the strace output and the 'user' file, I have no idea where that came from.

That's a NTFS symbolic link. Are you trying to run /home on NTFS? Or did you sync information to NTFS and back?

I recovered my /home folder from a backup two years ago, and I think the backup was stored on a NTFS partition.

Should I request closure for the bug report? Thank you to everyone involved, I appreciate your work.

All I can figure is that the issue came from backup. I'm certain that it's not a packaging issue, so I'm going to go ahead and close this.