Fancontrol starts manually but fails as service

Question

When fancontrol is started from the terminal it works fine

# fancontrol
Loading configuration from /etc/fancontrol ...

Common settings:
  INTERVAL=2

Settings for /sys/devices/platform/it87.656/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/device/pwm1:
  Depends on /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:18.3/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/device/temp1_input
  Controls /sys/devices/platform/it87.656/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/device/fan1_input
  MINTEMP=17
  MAXTEMP=53
  MINSTART=140
  MINSTOP=50
  MINPWM=0
  MAXPWM=255

Settings for /sys/devices/platform/it87.656/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/device/pwm3:
  Depends on /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:18.3/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/device/temp1_input
  Controls /sys/devices/platform/it87.656/hwmon/hwmon[[:print:]]*/device/fan2_input
  MINTEMP=17
  MAXTEMP=55
  MINSTART=140
  MINSTOP=50
  MINPWM=0
  MAXPWM=255

Enabling PWM on fans...
Starting automatic fan control...

However when starting fancontrol as a service (at or after boot), it fails.

# service fancontrol start
[ ok ] Starting fan speed regulator: fancontrol.
# service fancontrol status
[FAIL] fancontrol is not running ... failed!

What is the difference between starting fancontrol as a service vs manually that would cause it to fail?

Debian Wheezy Fancontrol initscript

#! /bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          fancontrol
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description: fancontrol
# Description:       fan speed regulator
### END INIT INFO

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

[ -f /etc/default/rcS ] && . /etc/default/rcS
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin
DAEMON=/usr/sbin/fancontrol
DESC="fan speed regulator"
NAME="fancontrol"
PIDFILE=/var/run/fancontrol.pid
CONF=/etc/fancontrol

test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

case "$1" in
  start)
    if [ -f $CONF ] ; then
        if $DAEMON --check 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null ; then
            log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
            start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --pidfile $PIDFILE --startas $DAEMON
            log_end_msg $?
        else
            log_failure_msg "Not starting fancontrol, broken configuration file; please re-run pwmconfig."
        fi
    else
        if [ "$VERBOSE" != no ]; then
            log_warning_msg "Not starting fancontrol; run pwmconfig first."
        fi
    fi
    ;;
  stop)
    log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
    start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --oknodo --startas $DAEMON
    rm -f $PIDFILE
    log_end_msg $?
    ;;
  restart)
    $0 stop

Solution

I feel silly, should've investigated more. Here is the answer just incase I mess this up or anyone else has the same problem. Also, many thanks to @Fiisch for advice and pointing me in the right direction.

When starting fancontrol via #service fancontrol start or #fancontrol, the errors of /usr/sbin/fancontrol are not printed. Due to motherboard limitations, my sensors are defined as absolute paths. So I ran /usr/sbin/fancontrol. This causes the error

Configuration is too old, please run pwmconfig again

So I decided to take a look at /usr/sbin/fancontrol to see why. I found the cause at lines 302-307:

# Check for configuration change
if [ -z "$DEVPATH" -o -z "$DEVNAME" ]
then
    echo "Configuration is too old, please run pwmconfig again" >&2
    exit 1
fi

Its just a simple configuration change detector! since, I had specified the absolute paths for my sensors, not only was this not necessary, it was actually causing the error. So I just commented it out.

## Check for configuration change
#if [ -z "$DEVPATH" -o -z "$DEVNAME" ]
#then
#   echo "Configuration is too old, please run pwmconfig again" >&2
#   exit 1
#fi

That was it! fancontrol works perfectly now and starts at boot time.

Comments

[Fiisch]

Post here the initscript (/etc/init.d/fancontrol) so we can look what is happening during the boot start. Also post what OS you use. Some quick ideas: 1) different ENV variables 2) sudo command somewhere inside the initscript && requiretty in sudo configuration

[Jason.local]

@Fiisch Im on Debian wheezy and ive added the fancontrol initscript.

[Fiisch]

Try to run start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile /var/run/fancontrol.pid --startas /usr/sbin/fancontrol from your terminal and post results. Also try the same but first set your PATH to the same as is written in the initscript. And please post the output of which fancontrol from your bash session. :) PS: Sorry for the delay. I had much work to do.