The unit asterisk.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'timeout'

[Raul Jimeno <raul.jimeno@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all, 

Sorry, I am new on this list and this is my first post requesting some help troubleshooting an issue with systemd. 

I’m experiencing an issue where the Asterisk service fails to start and times out consistently. This happens across multiple versions of Asterisk, so we suspect it might be a systemd-related issue.

The OS is Rocky Linux release 8.9 and running in a VM. 
No issue in other sites with same OS and same Asterisk versions 

Issue Details:

• When starting Asterisk with systemctl, it fails due to a timeout:

  sudo systemctl start asterisk  
  Job for asterisk.service failed because a timeout was exceeded.  
  See "systemctl status asterisk.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.  
  

• systemctl status asterisk shows the service in an "activating" state for a while before timing out:

  asterisk.service - Asterisk PBX and telephony daemon  
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/asterisk.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)  
   Active: activating (start) since Tue 2024-12-17 16:22:36 EET; 21s ago  
  

• After a minute or so, the service fails with the following:

  Dec 17 16:37:47 localhost systemd[1]: Failed to start Asterisk PBX and telephony daemon.  
  The unit asterisk.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'timeout'.  
  

What Has Been Tried:

1. Different versions of Asterisk have been tested — the issue persists.
2. Asterisk was run manually, and it starts fine outside of systemd.
3. Timeouts (TimeoutStartSec) were increased in the systemd unit file, but the service still doesn’t reach an "active (running)" state.

Any help would be really appreciate. 

Kind regards,

Raúl Jimeno

IT Support Engineer

INVADE International Ltd

+44 33 3344 0784 (Office)
+44 117 3251309 (Direct)

raul.jimeno@xxxxxxxxxx
http://www.invade.net

Invade International Ltd

Unit 6, Badminton Court, Station Road, Bristol
BS37 5HZ, United Kingdom

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This email, and any attachment, is intended only for the attention of the addressee. Its unauthorised use, disclosure, storage or copying is not permitted. If you are not the intended recipient, please destroy all copies and inform the sender by return email. If you have received this email in error, please return it to the sender and highlight the error. We accept no legal liability for the content of the message. Any opinions or views presented are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent those of INVADE. We cannot guarantee that this message has not been modified in transit, and this message should not be viewed as contractually binding. Although we have taken reasonable steps to ensure that this email and attachments are free from any virus, we advise that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free.