New Linux Mint install needs barrier to load before login

General Linux Question
21

Good question.
Barrier is clearly using the wrong tool to get some network info.
And tbe tool it needs to use (Avahi) is available.
If you cant see any relevant barrier setting, I dont know where to look next?

22

Hi again, :wave:

IĀ“m also not sure what to try next.
As the steps provided in post #7 didnĀ“t have the desired effect these steps could be used for troubleshooting:

Here are some additional troubleshooting steps to try:

Confirm that the Barrier service is enabled to start on boot:

sudo systemctl is-enabled barrier.service

This command will indicate whether the Barrier service is set to start on boot. If it returns enabled, the service is configured correctly. If it returns disabled, you can enable it with:

sudo systemctl enable barrier.service

Check the status of the Barrier service again to see if any error messages are displayed:

sudo systemctl status barrier.service

(If there are errors or the service is not running one would have to investigate further.)

If the Barrier service is not starting correctly, you could try manually starting it as a test to see if it works outside the systemd service configuration.
Open a terminal and run the following command:

/usr/bin/barrierc

This command will attempt to start Barrier. Check for any error messages or unexpected behavior when running it this way.

Now:

If Barrier starts successfully when manually executed, you can try modifying the systemd service unit file (from post #7) . Open the service unit file again using a text editor:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/barrier.service

Update the ExecStart line to the following:

ExecStart=/usr/bin/barrierc --no-tray --debug INFO --name <your_desired_name>

Replace <your_desired_name> with a name you choose for your Barrier setup.

Save the file and exit the editor. Then reload the systemd daemon:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Finally, restart the Barrier service:

sudo systemctl restart barrier.service

Check the status of the service again and see if it starts without errors.

These are the follow-up recommendations by ChatGPT.
I looked at them and they seem to make sense.

But perhaps someone else could have a look at them, just to make sure.
Apart from that the problem Sheila seems to encounter may be a bit too tricky for me.

Sorry, it seems I cannot be of much help hereā€¦ :frowning_face:

Many greetings from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

23

Thanks @nevj . I will see if I can dig into the settings and research the issue. I havenā€™t checked github to see if it has been reported. If it doesnā€™t affect functionality, Iā€™m not real concerned about it. But with some of the issues, just want to check if that is the fix.

Sheila

1 Like
24

Attempted this after seeing Barrier was saying ā€œstartingā€ on both the client (KDE) and the server (LM). The response in terminal was:
barrierc: a server address or name is required

Also, sudo sytemctrl is-enabled barrier.service returned this:
Failed to start barrier.service: Unit barrier.service not found.

This is one of those ā€œgripesā€ I mentioned about Barrier. It seems to work great for a long while, but then I am constantly having my Kubuntu sys freeze up so that only a hard reboot fixes it. It seems often if I catch it saying ā€œBarrier is startingā€ vs. ā€œBarrier is runningā€ I can close it, kill the process, restart Barrier and it will continue working. But if not, system freeze. I never had this issue before Barrier.

Anyway, I digress. Since neither the app nor terminal can get the service running, I rebooted after updating system. Now the instant the app starts, ā€œBarrier is runningā€ is displayed. And terminal: sudo systemctl is-enabled barrier.service Failed to get unit file state for barrier.service: No such file or directory

So there is definitely something amiss. If we canā€™t get the system to recognize barrier service running, we cannot proceed with the rest of the suggestions.

Thanks,
Sheila

1 Like
25

I was using it at work, for work, and wasnā€™t aware of Barrier back in 2018. I thought Iā€™d kick in some quids ($$$) to keep the project rolling along.

Iā€™ve found Synergy can be a bit flaky when it comes to hostnames, whether using avahi or not (itā€™s also very dodgy when youā€™re multihomed - e.g. using both ethernet and wifi at the same time). I just ensure I have a fixed IP address DHCP lease on my server machine and point clients at the IP address - MacOS is also pretty dodgyā€¦

Another reason I use IP addresses is to FORCE Synergy client(s) and server to use ethernet, despite having 5 Ghz WiFi - I find Synergy pretty awful to use on WiFi alone - gimme gigabit ethernet anyday over wifiā€¦

1 Like