GNOME, `upower.service` is unable to start, provides error:

Support
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1

Hello Manjaro community,
I have an issue with upower.service I was unable to troubleshoot.

Apparently I have discovered this issue after not finding anymore the battery percentage indicator on the top status bar.

Here some info:

> uname -a
Linux mjr 6.12.38-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon, 14 Jul 2025 15:37:06 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

> journalctl -xeu xpowerd
Jul 19 11:45:15 Mjr7480 upowerd[15567]: /usr/lib/upowerd: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libimobiledevice-glue-1.0.so.0: undefined symbol: plist_new_unix_date
Jul 19 11:45:15 Mjr7480 systemd[1]: upower.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=127/n/a
Subject: Unit process exited
Defined-By: systemd
Support: https://forum.manjaro.org/c/support

An ExecStart= process belonging to unit upower.service has exited.

The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 127.
Jul 19 11:45:15 Mjr7480 systemd[1]: upower.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Subject: Unit failed
Defined-By: systemd
Support: https://forum.manjaro.org/c/support

The unit upower.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Jul 19 11:45:15 Mjr7480 systemd[1]: Failed to start Daemon for power management.
Subject: A start job for unit upower.service has failed
Defined-By: systemd
Support: https://forum.manjaro.org/c/support

A start job for unit upower.service has finished with a failure.

The job identifier is 9308 and the job result is failed.

> pacman -Ss libimobiledevice
extra/libimobiledevice 1.3.0-16 [installed]
    Library to communicate with services on iOS devices using native protocols
extra/libimobiledevice-glue 1.3.2-1 [installed]
    A library with common code used by libraries and tools around the libimobiledevice project

> systemctl status upower.service 
Ă— upower.service - Daemon for power management
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/upower.service; disabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sat 2025-07-19 11:05:24 EDT; 19min ago
 Invocation: 62ecc98343b84d3c9c0087eb74b90f3e
       Docs: man:upowerd(8)
    Process: 12260 ExecStart=/usr/lib/upowerd (code=exited, status=127)
   Main PID: 12260 (code=exited, status=127)

Jul 19 11:05:24 Mjr7480 systemd[1]: upower.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Jul 19 11:05:24 Mjr7480 systemd[1]: upower.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Jul 19 11:05:24 Mjr7480 systemd[1]: upower.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jul 19 11:05:24 Mjr7480 systemd[1]: Failed to start Daemon for power management.

I have tried:

  • restarting the services and reinstalling the modules/libs libimobiledevice and libimobiledevice-glue.
  • updated the system and rebooted.
  • uninstalling and reinstalling the modules/libs above.
  • I cannot even find any related info regarding power management on gnome-tweaks where normally is listed the option for “top-bar battery percentage indicator”.

Thank you all for your help!

2

Heya,

No immediate clue what this could be,

What does systemctl status power-profiles-daemon.service output?

inxi --full --admin --filter --width would increase your changes of getting help.

1 Like
3

Thank you for the quick reply.
Well well… I think we are already on the right track:

> systemctl status power-profiles-daemon.service
Unit power-profiles-daemon.service could not be found.

Could this be related to a missing package? (for some reason)
I have read that power-profiles-daemon has been forked again… when I try to install it from the extra package, I get a request to remove TLP since they are now in conflict.
I am not sure I want to remove TLP for its inherit power management features… Should I proceed and remove TLP?
Will I obtain the same benefits in power management and customization from the power-profiles-daemon package?

Thank you in advance!

4

Ah, well tlp and the power-profiles-daemon are indeed conflicting

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/CPU_frequency_scaling#power-profiles-daemon

5

That’s indeed how it should be. You can use either power-profiles-daemon or tlp, but not both.

TLP has more features; at the end of the day it’s simply a matter of choice - either could be used for the forseeable future.

If you’re comfortable with TLP there’s no pressing need to change it.

Regards.

6

Thank you all for the reply and help.
I think I can put my mind at ease and keep tlp since I prefer it, at the moment.
Also removing tlp and installing power-profiles-daemon still did not resolve my issue.

All of this attention to the matter started when I had to look into the disappear of the “battery percentage indicator” on my top status bar, it is not there anymore. Any idea how to fix this or why it happened?
I have checked and looked into: settings (power section), Gnome-Extensions and Gnome-Tweaks but no luck…

Thank you again

7

type the following in your terminal

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface show-battery-percentage true

If this does not show the battery-percentage, try to

  • temporarily disable all extensions to figure out if one of them is the reason, or
  • setup the battery management from scratch again as there would be something broken and the battery information are not visible to the system at all:
8

Thank you for your suggestions Zauberer-Merlin.

I know that I had that key in gsettings already set to true, however, I’ve ran that command again and the get function confirms it was set to true.

I have tried to reinstall tlp no changes.

Also tried to remove some extensions, reinstall them, disable them all … etc… no change.

Apparently, the battery percentage is mysteriously gone…

9

I would probably setup a new user to see if this is a GNOME configuration error. And try a different distro (also Manjaro install ISO could be tested) (USB boot stick) to check if this is related to manjaro / your installation or not (if not, prob. hardware issue) … Beside this - no idea what to test

1 Like