Debian Trixie update leads to non running vzlogger and broken install script

[dm82m]

Hey guys,

I have update bookworm to trixie and vzlogger is not running anymore:

pi@raspberrypi:~/vzlogger $ sudo systemctl status vzlogger
× vzlogger.service - vzlogger
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/vzlogger.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2025-10-02 15:15:46 CEST; 17min ago
   Duration: 196ms
 Invocation: 6c3f442690ba4c788115bb86ecea0d9c
    Process: 1195 ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/vzlogger -c /etc/vzlogger.conf (code=exited, status=127)
   Main PID: 1195 (code=exited, status=127)
        CPU: 37ms

Oct 02 15:15:45 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started vzlogger.service - vzlogger.
Oct 02 15:15:46 raspberrypi systemd[1]: vzlogger.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=127/n/a
Oct 02 15:15:46 raspberrypi systemd[1]: vzlogger.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

If I try to install vzlogger it leads to this:

pi@raspberrypi:~/vzlogger $ sudo git pull
Already up to date.
pi@raspberrypi:~/vzlogger $ sudo ./install.sh 
vzlogger installation script

checking prerequisites: grep extrace git cmake pkg-config dh_autoreconf

vzlogger setup...

checking for vzlogger folder
. folder: /home/pi/vzlogger/.

checking for libraries
/home/pi/vzlogger/libs /home/pi/vzlogger

checking for libjson
json-c folder: /home/pi/vzlogger/libs/json-c

checking for libsml
libsml folder: /home/pi/vzlogger/libs/libsml

checking for libmbus
libmbus folder: /home/pi/vzlogger/libs/libmbus

building and installing libraries

building and installing libjson
/home/pi/vzlogger/libs/json-c /home/pi/vzlogger/libs /home/pi/vzlogger
make  all-recursive
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/pi/vzlogger/libs/json-c'
Making all in .
make[2]: Entering directory '/home/pi/vzlogger/libs/json-c'
/bin/bash ./libtool  --tag=CC   --mode=compile gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I.    -Wall -Werror -Wno-error=deprecated-declarations -Wextra -Wwrite-strings -Wno-unused-parameter -std=gnu99 -D_GNU_SOURCE -D_REENTRANT -g -O2 -MT arraylist.lo -MD -MP -MF .deps/arraylist.Tpo -c -o arraylist.lo arraylist.c
libtool: compile:  gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -Wall -Werror -Wno-error=deprecated-declarations -Wextra -Wwrite-strings -Wno-unused-parameter -std=gnu99 -D_GNU_SOURCE -D_REENTRANT -g -O2 -MT arraylist.lo -MD -MP -MF .deps/arraylist.Tpo -c arraylist.c  -fPIC -DPIC -o .libs/arraylist.o
arraylist.c: In function ‘array_list_new’:
arraylist.c:36:43: error: ‘calloc’ sizes specified with ‘sizeof’ in the earlier argument and not in the later argument [-Werror=calloc-transposed-args]
   36 |   if(!(arr->array = (void**)calloc(sizeof(void*), arr->size))) {
      |                                           ^~~~
arraylist.c:36:43: note: earlier argument should specify number of elements, later size of each element
cc1: all warnings being treated as errors
make[2]: *** [Makefile:586: arraylist.lo] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/pi/vzlogger/libs/json-c'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:650: all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/pi/vzlogger/libs/json-c'
make: *** [Makefile:444: all] Error 2

any help is appreciated.

Best,
Dirk

[J-A-U]

Hallo Dirk, check or get the latest version of json library. cd /home/pi/vzlogger/libs/json-c git pull Then compile again. Grüße.

[dm82m]

tried that but it results in the same error, but vzlohger is using old 0,12.1 version

[dm82m]

also created an issue at json-c: json-c/json-c#897

[hawicz]

As far as I can tell, the most recent json-c code doesn't have any calls to calloc that would trigger this warning. Please make sure you're actually using a recent commit, and if you still getting an error please show details, including current line numbers.

[dm82m]

I manually installed json-c 0.18 and removed the installation of 0.12.1 out of the vzlogger installer script. with that approach I was able to get vzlogger up and running again.

Would be great if a maintainer could have look on it and fix it for other users migrating to trixie.

[J-A-U]

I actually don't know why we specified Version 0.12 in the script.

[r00t-]

this mainly reminds me of #624

@dm82m: can you say why you are not using the debian package? you should be able to just apt-get install vzlogger

[dm82m]

Not sure, guess I used it when there was no Debian package at hand. Can you give me a hint what I need to remove to get rid of the manual installation?

[J-A-U]

https://github.com/volkszaehler/vzlogger/blob/master/README.md#debian-and-raspberry-pi-os-packages https://wiki.volkszaehler.org/software/controller/vzlogger/installation_cpp-version?redirect=1#vzlogger_aus_paket_installieren Just to be sure, save vzlogger.conf beforehand. I don't think you have to delete anything manually, the binary will be overwritten.

[dm82m]

switched to the debian package version and got rid of manual compiling. thanks for your hints and help so far!

edit:

just to ensure for others following my apporach:

• the own compiled binary is put in /usr/local/bin/vzlogger
• the package installed binary is put in /usr/bin/vzlogger

you need to manually edit /etc/systemd/system/vzlogger.service to use the /usr/bin/vzlogger binary - otherwise the old and own compiled version is gonna used - and not the package installed.

[narc-Ontakac2]

Removing the existing /etc/systemd/system/vzlogger.service should also do it. What do ls -l /usr/lib/systemd/system/vzlogger.service and diff /etc/systemd/system/vzlogger.service /usr/lib/systemd/system/vzlogger.service tell you?

$ apt-file list vzlogger 
vzlogger: /etc/init.d/vzlogger            
vzlogger: /etc/logrotate.d/vzlogger
vzlogger: /etc/vzlogger.conf
vzlogger: /usr/bin/vzlogger
vzlogger: /usr/lib/static/libproto.a
vzlogger: /usr/lib/static/libvz-api.a
vzlogger: /usr/lib/static/libvz.a
vzlogger: /usr/lib/systemd/system/vzlogger.service
vzlogger: /usr/share/doc/vzlogger/README.InfluxDB.md
vzlogger: /usr/share/doc/vzlogger/README.mysmartgrid.md
vzlogger: /usr/share/doc/vzlogger/changelog.Debian.gz
vzlogger: /usr/share/doc/vzlogger/copyright
vzlogger: /usr/share/doc/vzlogger/examples/vzlogger.conf.InfluxDB
vzlogger: /usr/share/doc/vzlogger/examples/vzlogger.conf.meterOCR
vzlogger: /usr/share/doc/vzlogger/examples/vzlogger.conf.meterOMS
vzlogger: /usr/share/doc/vzlogger/examples/vzlogger.conf.mySmartGrid
vzlogger: /usr/share/man/man8/vzlogger.8.gz

[dm82m]

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ls -l /usr/lib/systemd/system/vzlogger.service
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 268 Sep  7 07:49 /usr/lib/systemd/system/vzlogger.service

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ diff /etc/systemd/system/vzlogger.service /usr/lib/systemd/system/vzlogger.service
3,4c3,4
< After=syslog.target network.target
< After=mysql.service ntp.service middleware.service push-server.service
---
> Documentation=man:vzlogger(8)
> After=network.target ntp.service
8c8,10
< ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
---
> User=_vzlogger
> Group=_vzlogger
> ExecReload=
9a12
> PrivateTmp=yes