Failed to start Valkey [Sentinel] instance: basename

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1

I am using openSUSE Tumbleweed (always up to date) and recently noticed failures on system boot. I know that I have the problem for month but because it has no noticeable negative effect on my system I never really had any pressure to solve it.

During boot I get these messages:

[FAILED] Failed to start Valkey instance: basename.
[FAILED] Failed to start Valkey Sentinel instance: basename.

those message appear multiple times. Searching for those messages does not give anything meaningful apart from a post in this forum here (Valkey-sentinel fails to load boot messages) and a bugzilla entry: 1226986 – Valkey migration enables bogus valkey@basename services

The related bugs are all closed but the solution is not helpful. Can anyone help me sol solve this?

2

Just delete these unit definitions if you do not need them (you probably do not if they always failed).

3

Can you point me to the place where to find them?

4 
grep -r "Valkey instance: basename" /etc/systemd/system
grep -r "Valkey Sentinel instance: basename" /etc/systemd/system

Just delete the files with this Description.

5

Those files does not even exist. That is probably the problem. If i understand the comments in the bugtracker correctly, than those files where never copied because of a missing “$” in the copy script. So the problem probably comes from some references to those file in other units…

6

Then do

grep -r "Valkey instance" /etc/systemd/system
grep -r "Valkey Sentinel instance" /etc/systemd/system
7

Again, nothing :frowning:

8

As you does not show what you did and the output there is no way to guess. We are not staying behind your shoulder.

9

I just typed in the grep commands you gave me and the return was empty.
I guess there is some unit file not in /etc/systemd/system which refers to those missing files

10

Ok i tried something else:

[me@home] /etc/systemd/system $ systemctl status valkey@basename.service 
Ă— valkey@basename.service - Valkey instance: basename
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/valkey@.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2025-11-03 06:54:50 CET; 11h ago
 Invocation: af1a3665e70c4548ad56a5861bd02a2d
    Process: 2061 ExecStart=/usr/bin/valkey-server /etc/valkey/basename.conf (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Main PID: 2061 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Warning: some journal files were not opened due to insufficient permissions.

there seems to be a permissions problem?
Nvm. the perssmissions problem is because I did not used sudo, here is the output again with sudo:

[me@home] /etc/systemd/system $ sudo systemctl status valkey@basename.service 
Ă— valkey@basename.service - Valkey instance: basename
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/valkey@.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2025-11-03 06:54:50 CET; 11h ago
 Invocation: af1a3665e70c4548ad56a5861bd02a2d
    Process: 2061 ExecStart=/usr/bin/valkey-server /etc/valkey/basename.conf (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Main PID: 2061 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Nov 03 06:54:50 home systemd[1]: valkey@basename.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Nov 03 06:54:50 home systemd[1]: valkey@basename.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Nov 03 06:54:50 home systemd[1]: valkey@basename.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 03 06:54:50 home systemd[1]: Failed to start Valkey instance: basename.

Btw. the /etc/valkey/basename.conf does not exist. /etc/valkey only contains two files: default.conf.example and sentinel.conf.example

11

That is better communicated by copy/paste. We see then exactly what you did and got (that is when you include the line with the prompt/command up to and including the line with the new prompt). And the no need to explain that with stories, because we all see it.

1 Like
12

Simply disable it.

systemctl disable valkey@basename.service