Cannot create a virtual machine on Fedora: Activation of org.freedesktop.machine1 timed out

Question

I am trying to create a new VM within Fedora using virt-manager. However, I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/asyncjob.py", line 89, in cb_wrapper
    callback(asyncjob, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/create.py", line 1854, in do_install
    guest.start_install(meter=meter)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/guest.py", line 411, in start_install
    noboot)
  File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/guest.py", line 475, in _create_guest
    dom = self.conn.createLinux(start_xml or final_xml, 0)
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/libvirt.py", line 3440, in createLinux
    if ret is None:raise libvirtError('virDomainCreateLinux() failed', conn=self)
libvirtError: error from service: CreateMachine: Activation of org.freedesktop.machine1 timed out

How do I fix this so that I can create virtual machines?

Answer 1

org.freedesktop.machine1 means systemd-machined service which has timedout for some reason. I have seen this issue on older machines that are still supported a lot, it maybe still relevant in the latest systemd.

For a newcomer, when encountering this error, please run systemctl status systemd-machined and then try restarting systemd-machined or reloading systemd :

systemctl restart systemd-machined systemctl daemon-reload

If it is reproducible, please open a bug at https://github.com/systemd/systemd

Of course, if you are an advanced user, debug logs and other details would be appreciated for fixing the issue.