Restarting albert launched through users systemd causes other processes to get killed

[Sharsie]

I was wondering if this is related to #1333
I have a pretty simple systemd service

[Unit]
Description=Make sure albert launcher is always running
After=graphical-session.target
ConditionPathExists=/usr/bin/albert

[Service]
RestartSec=2
Restart=always
ExecStart=/usr/bin/albert

[Install]
WantedBy=graphical-session.target

Everything is fine and dandy, until I call systemctl restart albert

At that point, all applications that were started through albert (and it seems that some other ones too) get SIGKILL

Dec 07 15:45:32 hostname systemd[3236]: Stopping albert.service - Make sure albert launcher is always running...
Dec 07 15:45:32 hostname albert[3001464]: 15:45:32 [info:albert] Bye.
Dec 07 15:45:32 hostname kded5[3488]: Service  ":1.26711" unregistered
Dec 07 15:45:32 hostname kwin_x11[3490]: qt.qpa.xcb: QXcbConnection: XCB error: 3 (BadWindow), sequence: 63211, resource id: 10485793, major code: 18 (ChangeProperty), minor code: 0
Dec 07 15:45:32 hostname systemd[3236]: albert.service: Killing process 3001887 (StyleThread#3) with signal SIGKILL.
Dec 07 15:45:32 hostname systemd[3236]: albert.service: Killing process 3002261 (DNS Resolver #9) with signal SIGKILL.
Dec 07 15:45:32 hostname systemd[3236]: Stopped albert.service - Make sure albert launcher is always running.
Dec 07 15:45:32 hostname systemd[3236]: albert.service: Consumed 28.862s CPU time.

But if I run albert through terminal and quit/kill it, it does not happen.
Is this related to the QT bug? Or does anyone have any clue what is different when it is run through the systemd context?

[ManuelSchneid3r]

Why do you run it as a user service at all? Why not just https://specifications.freedesktop.org/autostart-spec/0.5/?

I dare to say that services omit some things like session setup and teardown scripts, signalling and such.

[ManuelSchneid3r]

Please send the core dumps! I dont know it for sure, but i assume that the process is a child of systemd and not X nor the session (gnome, kde, xfce and such). The latter do some stuff like waiting for termination or even allow interaction in this stage. I dont think system does support such things.

[Sharsie]

i assume that the process is a child of systemd

Yes, that is correct, that's a good pointer, because all applications launched through albert become children of systemd as well and are part of the same control group, so it makes complete sense that everything is killed on service restart.
I suppose a solution would be

I'm not sure if I can provide the coredump, I don't think the core is dumped when I restart it through systemd. Or do you mean forcing a core dump, while it is running as a systemd service?

[ManuelSchneid3r]

I suppose a solution would be?

[Sharsie]

I totally missed that, sorry, I didn't want to mention it in the end. Solution would be to run albert with KillMode=process, but since this is discouraged and the sub processes are still run as systemd children, it kinda solves the problem by possibly obfuscating others that might not be obvious. So I did not want to guide someone into a bad solution in the future :)

[ManuelSchneid3r]

Well, Albert is not meant to be started using systemd but rather as a child of a desktop session. The sole purpose child processes are detached is that they are not terminated in case of a crash of Albert. Please use regular autostart and send the core dumps such that we can fix the root cause.