Error about "systemd: XXX.service Start request repeated too quickly" Failed to start

This document (000019750) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12

Situation

Services are failing to startup.

Verifying possible causes in "/var/log/messages" and/or "systemctl status XXX.service", it was found the following type messages are logged :

2020-10-22T19:53:44.850908+08:00 testserver systemd[1]: XXX.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
2020-10-22T19:53:44.851075+08:00 testserver systemd[1]: Failed to start XXX for UID 0.
2020-10-22T19:53:44.851280+08:00 testserver systemd[1]: XXX.service: Unit entered failed state.
2020-10-22T19:53:44.851385+08:00 testserver systemd[1]: XXX.service: Failed with result 'start-limit-hit'.
 
Job for XXX.service failed.
See "systemctl  status XXX.service" and "journalctl  -xe" for details.

Resolution

First of all, please ensure that frequent restarts of your services/applications within a short period of time are the expected behavior for that service (whether this is done for testing or other reasons)

When not, it is important to troubleshoot the reason for the frequent restarts of the service. This existing behavior exists as a measure to prevent many repetitions of service restarts in a system. Once the service restart exceeds the value of StartLimitBurst within the time specified by the value of StartLimitInterval, the service startup will fail.
StartLimitInterval is set to 10 seconds by default and StartLimitBurst is set to 5 by default.

The problem can be avoided by disabling the restrictions (be mindful of implications before disabling any system setting !! and please take note of any changes so they can be undone !!)

To disable checking of service starts, please set StartLimitBurst to a value of 0 (read : 'zero')

Check systemd's file with the following command:

# systemctl show -p FragmentPath user@0.service
FragmentPath=/usr/lib/systemd/system/user@.service

Write StartLimitBurst=0 in [Service] section:

# vim /usr/lib/systemd/system/user@.service
...
StartLimitBurst=0

Re-load the modified systemd file.

# systemctl daemon-reload

Cause

If the service restart exceeds the value of StartLimitBurst within the time specified by the value of StartLimitInterval, the service startup will fail.

Additional Information

See the man pages for more details :

# man 5 systemd.service
Restart=
Note that service restart is subject to unit start rate limiting configured with StartLimitIntervalSec= and StartLimitBurst=
...

# man 5 systemd.unit
StartLimitIntervalSec=, StartLimitBurst=
           Configure unit start rate limiting. By default, units which are started more than 5 times within 10 seconds are not permitted to start any more times until the 10 second interval ends. With
           these two options, this rate limiting may be modified. Use StartLimitIntervalSec= to configure the checking interval (defaults to DefaultStartLimitIntervalSec= in manager configuration file, set
           to 0 to disable any kind of rate limiting). Use StartLimitBurst= to configure how many starts per interval are allowed (defaults to DefaultStartLimitBurst= in manager configuration file). 
...

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