mpd not starting

[Karl Auer]

On Sat, 2017-07-15 at 17:00 +1000, Phil wrote:
> It's been awhile since I've used Kubuntu because my desktop computer 
> failed. This is how I had started mpd on my Raspberry pi:
> 
> sudo service mpd start
> and now this is the response:
> Job for mpd.socket failed.
> See "systemctl status mpd.socket" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

Is this on a Pi or on Kubuntu (or Kubuntu on a Pi?!?)

> Those two only tell me that mpd failed to start.
> Any suggestions?

TBH don't know what journalctl does, but I keep seeing it mentioned so
probably should go find out :-)

Check in /var/log/syslog for messages, though I suspect you will still
see only that it "failed to start".

When something used to work and now doesn't you can be sure that
something has changed. The usual suspects are usually worth checking:
Any updates to the package? Still got enough disk space and enough RAM?
Still being started by the same user, and one with enough permissions?
Are you starting it with enough permissions (not being able to create
PID files is a classic symptom of bad permissions - see if there's a
PID file in /var/run and see who owns it). Using sudo is no guarantee
of the right permissions - a lot of programs switch users after
starting. If mpd has a special user, check that that user has the
necessary permissions.

Since it's a socket, network stuff may come into play too. My gut
feeling (since sockets are extremely simple beasts) would be that mpd
is already running! Or at least the socket is. Check whether anything
is listening on whatever port it uses - google says 6600, so "netstat
-an | grep 6600". I'd have thought that problem would be logged though.
Is the program tied to particular interfaces? If so, are they still
there, with the same names?

Finally (and I hate suggesting this) you could try rebooting just to
make sure that everything is started again and in the right order. If
that doesn't work, you could also try uninstalling and re-installing
the package.

BTW I do not use and know nothing about mpd, so take anything I say on
the matter with a grain of salt.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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