What is the meaning of: Warning: Fake initctl called, doing nothing. root@mjh-deskto

drmjh · 09-05-2011, 11:08 AM

I have puzzled over this warning several times recently.
Today, I was trying to view Upstart on my desktop:

Code:

sudo -s

Code:

initctl list

and I received the following warning:

"Warning: Fake initctl called, doing nothing.
root@mjh-desktop:~# "

What is the meaning of this?
Thank you in advance for your input.
Matthew

frankbell · 09-06-2011, 08:38 PM

A little Googling indicates that it is likely related to a bug in upstart.

drmjh · 09-07-2011, 07:25 AM

H'mm.
Thank you for your input. Any suggestions on taking corrective action? The computer that this happens to also does not run cups correctly nor the ssh server. Could there be a commonality?
Matthew

drmjh · 09-07-2011, 04:06 PM

I also did some googling but did not come up with any practical suggestions.
I have elsewhere found a command under "Package Management" that might work. Any thoughts?

Code:

apt-get -f install ???

The comment following says "try to fix broken packages" Question: is the proper name for this buggy package simply 'upstart' or is there more to it?
Matthew

frankbell · 09-07-2011, 06:15 PM

I don't think it's a package. It seems to be a fundamental part of Ubuntu.

http://upstart.ubuntu.com/

It starts things on boot. I think the name is a play on "start up."

jmidgren · 10-01-2012, 04:09 PM

I had the same problem (among many others) on a system where things got corrupted after tweaking and replacing disks in a RAID array.

In my case this problem was caused by that the upstart package simply wasn't there. Lots of files from this package reside in /sbin which in my case was nearly empty.

I managed to fix the issue by re-installing upstart:

Code:

sudo apt-get --reinstall install upstart

... Actually it was a bit more tricky for me since the dpkg package was damaged as well (which prevents the command above) and it seemed like grub was not properly installed either.

In case this happens to someone else, here is what I did (which took a lot of time and Googling to find out):

I used a live CD (must be same Ubuntu version and architecure, e.g. 12.04 x86_64) and started the computer.

To "repair" dpkg I manually copied the file /sbin/start-stop-daemon, which was missing, from a package as described here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1449322
(The corresponding file from my live CD was probably sufficient, but I thouhgt of that first later on.)

Then I chroot:ed into my installation (still using live CD) using the instructions found here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Gr...ing#via_ChRoot.

Before re-installing grub (described in the last few steps in the link above), I could now re-install dpkg:

Code:

apt-get --reinstall install dpkg

Then in the same way I re-installed upstart:

Code:

apt-get --reinstall install upstart

jefro · 10-01-2012, 07:14 PM

Another way it might have been fixed.

http://goodies.lemonsoftware.eu/linux:fake_initctl