Zigbee2mqtt fails to start on freshly installed openhabian

Setup, Configuration and Use Installation
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1
  • Platform information:
    • Hardware: Raspberry Pi 3b+
    • OS: Openhabian
    • Java Runtime Environment: openjdk 17.0.10 2024-01-16
    • openHAB version: 4.1.2

Hello there,
for upgrade-reason from stretch to bookworm i did a fresh installation of openhabian. Openhabian is up and running without any problems, installation of Mosquitto and zigbee2mqtt via openhabian-config worked also without error. Trying to use the zigbee2mqtt configuration page is not possible so i looked for the log-files and identified an error starting zigbee2mqtt as a service.
There is no log-file-directory for zigbee2mqtt and so there are no log-files written.
Looking in the the system-journal i found the following information:

==========================
Mar 27 10:15:54 openhabian systemd[1]: Started zigbee2mqtt.service - Zigbee2MQTT.
Mar 27 10:15:57 openhabian npm[20207]: > zigbee2mqtt@1.36.0 start
Mar 27 10:15:57 openhabian npm[20207]: > node index.js
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian npm[20219]: Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '/var/log/zigbee2mqtt'
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian npm[20219]:     at Object.mkdirSync (node:fs:1391:3)
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian npm[20219]:     at mkdirSyncRecursive (/opt/zigbee2mqtt/node_modules/mkdir-recursive/index.js:199:16)
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian npm[20219]:     at mkdirSyncRecursive (/opt/zigbee2mqtt/node_modules/mkdir-recursive/index.js:197:12)
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian npm[20219]:     at mkdirSyncRecursive (/opt/zigbee2mqtt/node_modules/mkdir-recursive/index.js:197:12)
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian npm[20219]:     at Object.mkdirSync (/opt/zigbee2mqtt/node_modules/mkdir-recursive/index.js:82:10)
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian npm[20219]:     at Object.init (/opt/zigbee2mqtt/lib/util/logger.ts:43:12)
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian npm[20219]:     at new Controller (/opt/zigbee2mqtt/lib/controller.ts:62:16)
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian npm[20219]:     at start (/opt/zigbee2mqtt/index.js:106:18)
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian npm[20219]:     at processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5)
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Consumed 18.364s CPU time.
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 9714.
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian systemd[1]: Stopped zigbee2mqtt.service - Zigbee2MQTT.
Mar 27 10:16:08 openhabian systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Consumed 18.364s CPU time.
==========================

So there is a never-ending loop trying to start the zigbee2mqtt service.
Stopping the service and trying to create the log-directory manually causes the system to hard crash.

Could anybody help me and give me a hint where the problem is and how to fix it.

2

This looks like it could be just a Linux permissions issue. You need to change the owner of the folder /var/log/zigbee2mqtt to be the same as that of the user that runs zigbee2mqtt.

You’ll be able to identify the user by looking at the zigbee2mqtt.service file. While your at you I would make sure the same user owns the /opt/zigbee2mqtt folder. That way it keeps things in sync.

3

Hi Maximo,
maybe i didn’t describe the problem in a precise manner. Creating the directory manually with the appropiate permissions didn’t change anything. It crashes the system and i need to reboot. After the reboot the directory is gone…

4

Hi Achim,
the problem you describe is really weird. But to be sure that we really understand your problem, it would be a good idea to post the output of the command “ls -l” of the log directory that you created.

With kindest regards
Joerg

5

/var/log is on zram, so you need a proper shutdown to make the directory reappear after next reboot.
I guess that never happened.
You can manually create the directory or (preferred) remove zigbee2mqtt with openhabian-config and reinstall it. After successful creation do a proper reboot so that zram gets written do sd-card. If anything goes wrong please report so I can try to fix.