Prosody issue while running
- Atul
- Technology , Web , Free software , The big o community , Nextcloud
- May 8, 2025
Table of Contents
Prosody issue while running
root@atulya:/# prosody
Prosody is no longer compatible with Lua 5.1
See https://prosody.im/doc/depends#lua for more information
root@atulya:/# sudo systemctl start prosody
Job for prosody.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status prosody.service" and "journalctl -xeu prosody.service" for details.
root@atulya:/# systemctl status prosody.service
× prosody.service - Prosody XMPP Server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/prosody.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2025-05-08 06:53:23 UTC; 11s ago
Duration: 1month 2w 5d 2h 3min 9.814s
Docs: https://prosody.im/doc
Process: 545053 ExecStart=/usr/bin/prosody -F (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 545053 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
CPU: 3ms
May 08 06:53:23 atulya systemd[1]: Starting prosody.service - Prosody XMPP Server...
May 08 06:53:23 atulya prosody[545053]: Prosody is no longer compatible with Lua 5.1
May 08 06:53:23 atulya prosody[545053]: See https://prosody.im/doc/depends#lua for more information
May 08 06:53:23 atulya systemd[1]: prosody.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
May 08 06:53:23 atulya systemd[1]: prosody.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May 08 06:53:23 atulya systemd[1]: Failed to start prosody.service - Prosody XMPP Server.
root@atulya:/# journalctl -xeu prosody.service
May 08 06:52:44 atulya systemd[1]: prosody.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
░░ Subject: Unit failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░
░░ The unit prosody.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
May 08 06:52:44 atulya systemd[1]: Failed to start prosody.service - Prosody XMPP Server.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit prosody.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░
░░ A start job for unit prosody.service has finished with a failure.
░░
░░ The job identifier is 234862 and the job result is failed.
May 08 06:53:23 atulya systemd[1]: Starting prosody.service - Prosody XMPP Server...
░░ Subject: A start job for unit prosody.service has begun execution
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░
░░ A start job for unit prosody.service has begun execution.
░░
░░ The job identifier is 234943.
May 08 06:53:23 atulya prosody[545053]: Prosody is no longer compatible with Lua 5.1
May 08 06:53:23 atulya prosody[545053]: See https://prosody.im/doc/depends#lua for more information
May 08 06:53:23 atulya systemd[1]: prosody.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
░░ Subject: Unit process exited
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░
░░ An ExecStart= process belonging to unit prosody.service has exited.
░░
░░ The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 1.
May 08 06:53:23 atulya systemd[1]: prosody.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
░░ Subject: Unit failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░
░░ The unit prosody.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
May 08 06:53:23 atulya systemd[1]: Failed to start prosody.service - Prosody XMPP Server.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit prosody.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://www.debian.org/support
░░
░░ A start job for unit prosody.service has finished with a failure.
░░
░░ The job identifier is 234943 and the job result is failed.
root@atulya:/#
Solution
I can see that you’re having an issue with starting the Prosody XMPP server. The error message is quite clear: Prosody is no longer compatible with Lua 5.1, which appears to be the version installed on your system.
The error specifically points to this documentation page for more information: https://prosody.im/doc/depends#lua
To fix this issue, you’ll need to upgrade to a newer version of Lua that’s compatible with your version of Prosody. Based on Prosody’s documentation, newer versions require Lua 5.2 or later.
Here’s how you can resolve this:
- Check your current Lua version:
lua -v
- Install a newer version of Lua:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install lua5.2 # or lua5.3, lua5.4 depending on availability
- You may also need to install the luarocks package manager for the newer version:
sudo apt install luarocks
- After installing the newer Lua version, you might need to reconfigure Prosody to use it:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure prosody
- Then try starting Prosody again:
sudo systemctl start prosody
If you’re using Debian or Ubuntu, you might also consider installing Prosody from their official repository which should pull in all the correct dependencies:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install prosody
