Fix a systemd service stuck in start-limit-hit ('Start request repeated too quickly')
domain: systemd · 7 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Symptom in journal/status: `myapp.service: Start request repeated too quickly.` followed by `Failed to start ...` and `Active: failed (Result: start-limit-hit)`.
Cause: the unit was (re)started more than StartLimitBurst times (default 5) within StartLimitIntervalSec (default 10s). With Restart=always and a fast-crashing process this triggers within a second.
Clear the state immediately so manual starts work again: `systemctl reset-failed myapp.service`, then `systemctl start myapp.service`. Fix the underlying crash using journalctl before touching limits.
To make restarts sustainable, slow them down rather than removing the limit: in [Service] set `RestartSec=5` (default is 100ms).
To widen the rate limit, set in the [Unit] section (NOT [Service]):
[Unit]
StartLimitIntervalSec=300
StartLimitBurst=10
For a service that should retry forever without ever hitting the limit, ensure RestartSec * StartLimitBurst > StartLimitIntervalSec, or set StartLimitIntervalSec=0 to disable rate limiting entirely.
Apply with `systemctl daemon-reload && systemctl restart myapp.service`.
Known gotchas
StartLimitIntervalSec/StartLimitBurst moved from [Service] to [Unit] in systemd 230; placing them under [Service] on modern systemd logs `Unknown key name` and they are ignored.
Restart=always does not bypass the start limit — once start-limit-hit is reached, automatic restarts stop until reset-failed or the interval elapses.
`systemctl restart` counts toward the burst just like automatic restarts.
Restart=on-failure does not restart on clean exit code 0 — if your app exits 0 on a fatal error, systemd considers it success; use Restart=always or fix the exit code.
SuccessExitStatus= can whitelist additional exit codes as clean, which then suppress on-failure restarts.
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