Using `systemctl is-active` on an inactive service via `multipass exec` results in infinite loop

[kev-cao]

Describe the bug I'm running systemctl is-active to check if a certain service is active on a multipass node, and if I run it through multipass ssh, it works fine and shows up as inactive once.

However, if I run it through multipass exec <node> -- /bin/bash -c "systemctl status <service>", it loops, infinitely printing out inactive.

This does not occur if the service is actually active.

To Reproduce How, and what happened?

1. multipass launch --name test
2. multipass exec test -- /bin/bash -c "systemctl is-active fake-service"
3. Infinite loop occurs

The same occurs if you use systemctl status on an inactive service.

Expected behavior It should log out inactive once and stop outputting to the terminal.

Additional info

• OS: macOS 15.0
  • multipass version: 1.14.1+mac
  • multipass info:

    Name:           test
    State:          Running
    Snapshots:      0
    IPv4:           192.168.73.9
    Release:        Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS
    Image hash:     ac62c13d0cc8 (Ubuntu 24.04 LTS)
    CPU(s):         1
    Load:           0.00 0.03 0.00
    Disk usage:     1.9GiB out of 4.8GiB
    Memory usage:   217.8MiB out of 1.9GiB
    Mounts:         --

  • multipass get local.driver: qemu

[sharder996]

Hi @kev-cao, thanks for bringing this to our attention. I have verified and can reproduce consistently. We will try to prioritize finding a fix for this bug.