Postgres No such interface 'org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties'

Question

Postgres database crashed after restart, tried just about everything including reinstalling postgres. It will not start on ubuntu 14.04,

$ systemctl status [email protected]

Failed to issue method call: No such interface 'org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties' on object at path /org/freedesktop/systemd1/unit/postgresql_409_2e6_2dmain_2eservice

$ pg_lsclusters

Ver Cluster Port Status Owner    Data directory               Log file
9.6 main    5432 down   postgres /var/lib/postgresql/9.6/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-9.6-main.log

$ sudo service postgresql start

* Starting PostgreSQL 9.6 database server                                                                                                                                  
* Failed to issue method call: Unit [email protected] failed to 
load: No such file or directory. See system logs and 'systemctl status 
[email protected]' for details.

$ ps uxa|grep dbus-daemon

message+   751  0.0  0.0  40812  4064 ?        Ss   18:39   0:03 dbus-daemon --system --fork
dominic   3058  0.0  0.0  40840  4252 ?        Ss   18:40   0:02 dbus-daemon --fork --session --address=unix:abstract=/tmp/dbus-S1LhlCDwl2
dominic   3145  0.0  0.0  39400  3536 ?        S    18:40   0:00 /bin/dbus-daemon --config-file=/etc/at-spi2/accessibility.conf --nofork --print-address 3
dominic  17462  0.0  0.0  15956  2244 pts/4    S+   21:45   0:00 grep --color=auto dbus-daemon

Postgres log file is empty.

Answer 1

I had the same error after install snap on Ubuntu 14.04. It was install some parts from systemd and broke postgresql init script.

You need to add parameter --skip-systemctl-redirect to pg_ctlcluster in file /usr/share/postgresql-common/init.d-functions

The function you need to change:

    do_ctl_all() {
      ...
      # --skip-systemctl-redirect fix postgresql No such interface 'org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties'
      if [ "$1" = "stop" ] || [ "$1" = "restart" ]; then
        ERRMSG=$(pg_ctlcluster --skip-systemctl-redirect --force "$2" "$name" $1 2>&1)
      else
        ERRMSG=$(pg_ctlcluster --skip-systemctl-redirect "$2" "$name" $1 2>&1)
      fi
      ...
    }

Answer 2

Ubuntu 14.04 did not switch to systemd yet. I highly recommend upgrading to 16.04 or even better, 18.04.