Kolibri failed update to 0.18 Debian RPi

Support Kolibri
1

I did an update of our RPi and seems the Kolibri upgrade has failed. Below is the output from my Terminal session.

pi@kolibri-saaresalaam:~ $ kolibri status
INFO     2025-05-02 07:22:50,677 Option DEBUG in section [Server] being overridden by environment variable KOLIBRI_DEBUG
INFO     2025-05-02 07:22:50,678 Option DEBUG_LOG_DATABASE in section [Server] being overridden by environment variable KOLIBRI_DEBUG_LOG_DATABASE
Unclean shutdown (7)
pi@kolibri-saaresalaam:~ $ sudo systemctl status kolibri

pi@kolibri-saaresalaam:~ $ sudo systemctl start kolibri
Job for kolibri.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status kolibri.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
pi@kolibri-saaresalaam:~ $ systemcctl status kolibri.service
-bash: systemcctl: command not found
pi@kolibri-saaresalaam:~ $ systemctl status kolibri.service
● kolibri.service - LSB: kolibri daemon, an offline education platform
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/kolibri; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2025-05-02 07:24:58 WAT; 56s ago
    Process: 59760 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/kolibri start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
        CPU: 44.743s

May 02 07:23:50 kolibri-saaresalaam kolibri[59773]: INFO     2025-05-02 07:23:50,845 Option DEBUG in section [Server] being overridden b>
May 02 07:23:50 kolibri-saaresalaam kolibri[59773]: INFO     2025-05-02 07:23:50,849 Option DEBUG_LOG_DATABASE in section [Server] being>
May 02 07:24:51 kolibri-saaresalaam kolibri[59773]: INFO     2025-05-02 07:24:51,382 Running Kolibri with the following settings: kolibr>
May 02 07:24:53 kolibri-saaresalaam kolibri[59773]: INFO     2025-05-02 07:24:53,026 Starting Kolibri 0.18.0
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam kolibri[59773]: ERROR    2025-05-02 07:24:58,059 There is another Kolibri server running. Please use>
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam runuser[59772]: pam_unix(runuser:session): session closed for user pi
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: kolibri.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: kolibri.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: kolibri daemon, an offline education platform.
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: kolibri.service: Consumed 44.743s CPU time.

pi@kolibri-saaresalaam:~ $ journalctl -xe
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ The unit kolibri.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: kolibri daemon, an offline education platform.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit kolibri.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ A start job for unit kolibri.service has finished with a failure.
░░ 
░░ The job identifier is 17576 and the job result is failed.
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: kolibri.service: Consumed 44.743s CPU time.
░░ Subject: Resources consumed by unit runtime
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ The unit kolibri.service completed and consumed the indicated resources.
May 02 07:25:59 kolibri-saaresalaam Connectd[765]: Connected to proxy target 10.0.2.1 port 444 for tunnel 131, sess=1
lines 1543-1560/1560 (END)
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ The unit kolibri.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: kolibri daemon, an offline education platform.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit kolibri.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ A start job for unit kolibri.service has finished with a failure.
░░ 
░░ The job identifier is 17576 and the job result is failed.
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: kolibri.service: Consumed 44.743s CPU time.
░░ Subject: Resources consumed by unit runtime
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ The unit kolibri.service completed and consumed the indicated resources.
May 02 07:25:59 kolibri-saaresalaam Connectd[765]: Connected to proxy target 10.0.2.1 port 444 for tunnel 131, sess=1
lines 1543-1560/1560 (END)
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ The unit kolibri.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: kolibri daemon, an offline education platform.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit kolibri.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ A start job for unit kolibri.service has finished with a failure.
░░ 
░░ The job identifier is 17576 and the job result is failed.
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: kolibri.service: Consumed 44.743s CPU time.
░░ Subject: Resources consumed by unit runtime
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ The unit kolibri.service completed and consumed the indicated resources.
May 02 07:25:59 kolibri-saaresalaam Connectd[765]: Connected to proxy target 10.0.2.1 port 444 for tunnel 131, sess=1
lines 1543-1560/1560 (END)
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ The unit kolibri.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
May 02 07:24:58 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: kolibri daemon, an offline education platform.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit kolibri.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░ 
░░ A start job for unit kolibri.service has finished with a failure.
░░ 
░░ The job identifier is 17576 and the job result is failed.

Technical details

  • Kolibri 0.18
  • Debian
2

Hrm, not good - sorry about this @cjackson.

Any chance of any zombie processes lingering? Could you try doing:
kolibri stop
systemctl stop kolibri.service
systemctl start kolibri.service
?

Feels like something is playing silly games here.

3

@richard Thanks for your reply. Sorry for the delay on my side. I had to travel soon after I did the update and didn’t have time to get back to it again until now.

I followed the steps. At first, it didn’t help producing the same error “There is another Kolibri server running.”

Then I decided to reboot the computer. That got Kolibri running and accessible. However, running status check on Kolibri and kolibri.service, I find that Kolibri is running, but the service is not. In my understanding, that doesn’t seem to be correct. Here’s the output:

pi@kolibri-saaresalaam:~ $ kolibri status
INFO     2025-05-21 10:58:43,050 Option DEBUG in section [Server] being overridden by environment variable KOLIBRI_DEBUG
INFO     2025-05-21 10:58:43,051 Option DEBUG_LOG_DATABASE in section [Server] being overridden by environment variable KOLIBRI_DEBUG_LOG_DATABASE
OK, running (0)
Kolibri running on:

	http://127.0.0.1:12345/
	http://10.0.2.100:12345/
pi@kolibri-saaresalaam:~ $ systemctl status kolibri.service
● kolibri.service - LSB: kolibri daemon, an offline education platform
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/kolibri; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2025-05-19 16:53:19 WAT; 1 day 18h ago
        CPU: 32.093s

May 19 16:51:59 kolibri-saaresalaam kolibri[714]: INFO     2025-05-19 16:51:59,743 Option DEB>
May 19 16:51:59 kolibri-saaresalaam kolibri[714]: INFO     2025-05-19 16:51:59,840 Option DEB>
May 19 16:53:10 kolibri-saaresalaam kolibri[714]: INFO     2025-05-19 16:53:10,154 Running Ko>
May 19 16:53:12 kolibri-saaresalaam kolibri[714]: INFO     2025-05-19 16:53:12,960 Starting K>
May 19 16:53:18 kolibri-saaresalaam kolibri[714]: ERROR    2025-05-19 16:53:18,008 There is a>
May 19 16:53:19 kolibri-saaresalaam runuser[699]: pam_unix(runuser:session): session closed f>
May 19 16:53:19 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: kolibri.service: Control process exited, code>
May 19 16:53:19 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: kolibri.service: Failed with result 'exit-cod>
May 19 16:53:19 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: kolibri daemon, an offli>
May 19 16:53:19 kolibri-saaresalaam systemd[1]: kolibri.service: Consumed 32.093s CPU time.
lines 1-15/15 (END)