Syncthing start fail on Raspberry pi

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1

I just installed Syncthing on Raspberry Pi. I created the config and added the following gui block.

    <gui enabled="true" tls="false" sendBasicAuthPrompt="false">
        <address>0.0.0.0:9394</address>
        <metricsWithoutAuth>false</metricsWithoutAuth>
        <theme>default</theme>
    </gui>

When I try to start syncthing I get the following error.

$ journalctl -r -u syncthing@raspberrypi
Feb 15 11:45:26 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Failed to start syncthing@raspberrypi.service - Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for raspberrypi.
Feb 15 11:45:26 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 15 11:45:26 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Feb 15 11:45:26 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 4.
Feb 15 11:45:25 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 15 11:45:25 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=217/USER
Feb 15 11:45:25 raspberrypi (yncthing)[1200]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/bin/syncthing: No such process
Feb 15 11:45:25 raspberrypi (yncthing)[1200]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
Feb 15 11:45:25 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started syncthing@raspberrypi.service - Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for raspberrypi.
Feb 15 11:45:25 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 3.
Feb 15 11:45:23 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 15 11:45:23 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=217/USER
Feb 15 11:45:23 raspberrypi (yncthing)[1197]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/bin/syncthing: No such process
Feb 15 11:45:23 raspberrypi (yncthing)[1197]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
Feb 15 11:45:23 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started syncthing@raspberrypi.service - Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for raspberrypi.
Feb 15 11:45:23 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 2.
Feb 15 11:45:22 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 15 11:45:22 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=217/USER
Feb 15 11:45:22 raspberrypi (yncthing)[1194]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/bin/syncthing: No such process
Feb 15 11:45:22 raspberrypi (yncthing)[1194]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
Feb 15 11:45:22 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started syncthing@raspberrypi.service - Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for raspberrypi.
Feb 15 11:45:22 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 1.
Feb 15 11:45:21 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 15 11:45:21 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=217/USER
Feb 15 11:45:21 raspberrypi (yncthing)[1130]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/bin/syncthing: No such process
Feb 15 11:45:21 raspberrypi (yncthing)[1130]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
Feb 15 11:45:21 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started syncthing@raspberrypi.service - Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for raspberrypi.

and

$ sudo systemctl status syncthing@raspberrypi
× syncthing@raspberrypi.service - Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for raspberrypi
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/syncthing@.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2026-02-15 11:45:26 IST; 3min 47s ago
   Duration: 15ms
 Invocation: d54439e49bec4146aaf5bb52748400dc
       Docs: man:syncthing(1)
    Process: 1200 ExecStart=/usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart (code=exited, status=217/USER)
   Main PID: 1200 (code=exited, status=217/USER)

Feb 15 11:45:26 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 4.
Feb 15 11:45:26 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Feb 15 11:45:26 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@raspberrypi.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 15 11:45:26 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Failed to start syncthing@raspberrypi.service - Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for raspberrypi.

and

$ syncthing cli show system
syncthing: error: Get "http://127.0.0.1:9394/rest/system/status": dial tcp 0.0.0.0:9394: connect: connection refused

Also

I have enabled 9394 port using ufw. https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/111330

I am trying to set up synching on a headless Raspberry Pi and access it on another laptop. I am also using tail scale.

2

I am able to run via directly invoking syncthing and also using systemctl service file command.

syncthing

and

/usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart

But systemctl start doesn’t seem to be working.

$ systemctl status syncthing@sudhir.raspberrypi
× syncthing@sudhir.raspberrypi.service - Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for sudhir.raspberrypi
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/syncthing@.service; disabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2026-02-15 19:12:27 IST; 8s ago
   Duration: 15ms
 Invocation: 9a76029a3bd343e4b796e130ddc9608c
       Docs: man:syncthing(1)
    Process: 1965 ExecStart=/usr/bin/syncthing serve --no-browser --no-restart (code=exited, status=217/USER)
   Main PID: 1965 (code=exited, status=217/USER)

Feb 15 19:12:27 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@sudhir.raspberrypi.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 4.
Feb 15 19:12:27 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@sudhir.raspberrypi.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Feb 15 19:12:27 raspberrypi systemd[1]: syncthing@sudhir.raspberrypi.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 15 19:12:27 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Failed to start syncthing@sudhir.raspberrypi.service - Syncthing - Open Source Continuous File Synchronization for sudhir.raspberrypi.

I have tried both syncthing@raspberrypi and syncthing@sudhir.raspberrypi.

3

I figured out the issue. status=217/USER gave the clue. I was appending hostname of the system after @name mistakenly instead of using .service. Once I removed that it started working.

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