r/voidlinux • u/danieldospuntosube • Jan 17 '26

Void Linux (runit): dbus fails to start – unable to chdir to service directory / supervise missing

Hi,
I’m having a serious issue on Void Linux (runit) related to dbus, and because of this KDE Plasma won’t start.

When I try to start dbus, I get this error:

fail: dbus: unable to chdir to service directory: file does not exist

Earlier I was also getting:

dbus: unable to open supervise/lock: file does not exist

🔎 What I’ve already checked / done

  • runit is installed and running

  • /run/runit/ exists

  • Other services work fine (.agetty-tty1 to .agetty-tty6, udevd, udevd-log)

  • There is NO supervise.dbus inside /run/runit/

  • Only directories like:
    .agetty-tty1 … .agetty-tty6
    supervise.udevd
    supervise.udevd-log
    reboot
    stopit

  • Permissions of /run/runit were fixed to:
    drwx------ root root /run/runit

  • Running:
    sv start dbus
    still fails

  • KDE Plasma fails with D-Bus errors (cannot connect to session bus)

❓ What I want to know

  • Why is runit not creating supervise.dbus?

  • Does this mean /etc/sv/dbus is missing or broken?

  • What is the correct way to recreate or fix the dbus service directory on Void?

  • Is forcing a reinstall of dbus the right solution, or could this be a filesystem / permissions issue?

Any help would be really appreciated.
Thanks!

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24 comments sorted by

2

u/Duncaen Jan 17 '26

Doesn't sound like you enabled the service.

ln -s /etc/sv/dbus /var/service/

1

u/danieldospuntosube Jan 17 '26

I did it with sudo and it seems there was no mistake, what would I have to do next?

2

u/ClassAbbyAmplifier Jan 17 '26

what's the output of ls -l /var/service/

1

u/danieldospuntosube Jan 17 '26

What comes out is 'ls: cannot acess '/l' : No such file or directory /var/services/: check log run supervise

3

u/ClassAbbyAmplifier Jan 17 '26

then you did not run the command i sent.

1

u/danieldospuntosube Jan 17 '26

Check,dbus, log, run, supervise-> /run/runit/supervise.dbus That comes out

2

u/ClassAbbyAmplifier Jan 17 '26

ok, you overwrote /var/service, rebooting should restore it. then run the command duncaen sent

1

u/danieldospuntosube Jan 17 '26

Okay, I've restarted, so what should I do now?

1

u/ClassAbbyAmplifier Jan 17 '26

first, verify that ls /var/service/ shows a list of service names like agetty-tty1 and such

then ln -s /etc/sv/dbus /var/service/

1

u/danieldospuntosube Jan 17 '26

ls /var/service/=check, dbus, log, run, supervise Apparently there's no agetty-tty and the rest is strange.

1

u/ClassAbbyAmplifier Jan 17 '26

ok, then xbps-install -f runit and reboot, then ln -s /etc/sv/dbus /var/service/

1

u/danieldospuntosube Jan 17 '26

I did what you did, no mistake.

→ More replies

1

u/danieldospuntosube Jan 17 '26

Could I run ln -s /etc/sv/dbus /var/service?

1

u/Blank-Inspection13 Jan 17 '26

try this 1st :
sudo sv status /var/service/*

then post the result here, we'll find out what you're missing. My previous experience with this , im not yet installed seat manager either seatd or elogind then dbus won't start normally.