DNS service not running

Sorry to jump into this topic, but experiencing what appears to be the same on a Unifi Cloud Key G1 as well.
The error messages I've received are essentially verbatim and are what brought me to this page.

Pihole status - DNS service is NOT running
pihole-FTL.service - Pi-hole FTL failed exit code as above.
Can start pihole-FTL manually.
Interestingly, pihole enable responds with the following:

root@CS-Cerberus:~# pihole enable
  [i] Blocking already enabled, nothing to do
root@CS-Cerberus:~# pihole status
  [✗] DNS service is NOT running
root@CS-Cerberus:~# pihole-FTL
FTL started!
root@CS-Cerberus:~# pihole status
  [✓] FTL is listening on port 53
     [✓] UDP (IPv4)
     [✓] TCP (IPv4)
     [✓] UDP (IPv6)
     [✓] TCP (IPv6)

I've updated the cloud key to debian 11.6 (from a full restore of the cloud key) and reinstalled pihole but no change in behaviour though.

More than happy to start a new ticket for this.

Cheers!

Please upload a debug log and post just the token URL that is generated after the log is uploaded by running the following command from the Pi-hole host terminal:

pihole -d

or do it through the Web interface:

Tools > Generate Debug Log

Awesome, thanks
token URL is
https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/aCOeRNEI/

Thanks

I've had similar issues at the moment. So far I've figured out that running service on CloudKey as root works. So as a temporary fix, I've edited the service to run as root (not advisable). Do as I say not as I do, however I've spent 4 hours of getting yelled at by the other addicts of the internet.
Here's how the temporary fix goes:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/pihole-FTL.service
find the line
User=pihole and change it User=root

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start pihole-FTL

I'll update the post if I can find out what going on with when service is trying to run as pihole.

LOL, that's exactly why I have a secondary pihole running :wink:

Good thoughts about the service account, unfortunately that account change hasn't made a change for me.

I tried the root command but it did nothing for me.

Yup. Mine crashed overnight as well.
Currently, I've changed the the user pihole to has bash access and debugging now. Dnsmasq seems to be culprit.

dnsmasq: failed to create listening socket for port 53: Permission denied
[2023-01-27 14:05:37.178 1569M] FATAL ERROR in dnsmasq core: failed to create listening socket for port 53: Permission denied
[2023-01-27 14:05:37.199 1569M] WARNING: Unable to empty PID file
[2023-01-27 14:05:37.202 1569M] ########## FTL terminated after 367ms  (code 1)! ##########

Will update once I get a solution.

Awesome. I only know so much about linux. Can putty in and edit txt files. Copy and paste stuff from what others have alresyd figured out

Update: (YMMV Working somewhat: admin interface does not update the stats)
Steps I took:

  • Upgraded distro to bullseye on CloudKey (Be sure to backup your settings)
    after upgrading lost systemd and fell back to sysinit (Problem for another day)
  • Purge php* (I'm thinking this is the problem now) as php5.6 was installed
  • Reinstall pihole

Tested and seems to survive reboots (needed to manually enable the service)

Hopefully, I'll get time to troubleshoot further but it seems to work at the moment. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

LOL... That's how I learned as well.
CloudKey has a reset button :wink:
To upgrade distro: https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/update-upgrade-debian-10-to-debian-11-bullseye/

Hope this helps!

Yep, I can run pihole-FTL and get everything running, although sudo service pihole-FTL start and I don't seem to get on too well.
I've updated the service to run as root, but no change if I use the pihole user account.

Last login: Sat Jan 28 19:37:29 2023 from
root@CS-Cerberus:~# pihole status
[✗] DNS service is NOT running
root@CS-Cerberus:~# sudo service pihole-FTL start
Job for pihole-FTL.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status pihole-FTL.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
root@CS-Cerberus:~# pihole status
[✗] DNS service is NOT running
root@CS-Cerberus:~# pihole-FTL
FTL started!
root@CS-Cerberus:~# pihole status
[✓] FTL is listening on port 53
[✓] UDP (IPv4)
[✓] TCP (IPv4)
[✓] UDP (IPv6)
[✓] TCP (IPv6)

[✓] Pi-hole blocking is enabled
root@CS-Cerberus:~#

So I'm cheating and just running a cron job to launch pihole-FTL on restart

I´m having the exact same problem - update crashes on "restarting pihole-FTL service".
Exact same situation as simian describes above.
I can also start pihole-FTL as root.
my debug token: https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/vPv8LkPN/

Can someone tell me how to upgrade from debian 9 to 11 or from debian 10 to 11 with a unifi cloudkey gen 1? I can get 9 to 10 with this website
[Guide] Installing Pi-hole on Unifi Cloudkey v1

Or can someone tell me the command using curl to install an older version of pi hole that still works with debian 10

  • Install Pi-hole using curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash
    I am sure there is a way to install an older copy but I do not know the command and no one seems to really have an answer to how to fix pi hole.

I tried that link someone else gave to get debian to 11 from 10 but it did not work for me I couldnt get everything to install.

We still support Debian 10.

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