Piaware fails on fresh SD card image install

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
1

I had an SD card image install working flawlessly for a few years and recently I noticed that piaware was failing to start. I tried fixing this but of no avail. However dump1090 seemed to work fine as the map displayed aircrafts.

Finally, I decided to reimage the SD card afresh (https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/files/piaware-sd-card-10.2.img.zip) yesterday and then again today and both times even after fully updating the packages and firmware, piaware does not start:

image
image2264Ă—1278 167 KB

The map continues to display okay.

Here is the output of sudo systemctl status piaware:

sudo systemctl status piaware
â—Ź piaware.service - FlightAware ADS-B uploader
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/piaware.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
    Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/piaware.service.d
             └─override.conf
     Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: signal) since Sun 2025-10-05 15:47:41 IST; 7s ago
       Docs: https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/
    Process: 3339 ExecStart=/usr/bin/piaware -p /run/piaware/piaware.pid -plainlog -statusfile /run/piaware/status.json (code=killed, signal=ABRT)
   Main PID: 3339 (code=killed, signal=ABRT)
        CPU: 504ms

and of sudo journalctl -u piaware.service -n 100 --no-pager:

sudo journalctl -u piaware.service -n 100 --no-pager
Oct 05 16:00:29 rad systemd[1]: piaware.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 81.
Oct 05 16:00:29 rad systemd[1]: Stopped piaware.service - FlightAware ADS-B uploader.
Oct 05 16:00:29 rad systemd[1]: Started piaware.service - FlightAware ADS-B uploader.
Oct 05 16:00:29 rad piaware[3585]: creating pidfile /run/piaware/piaware.pid
Oct 05 16:00:29 rad piaware[3585]: ****************************************************
Oct 05 16:00:29 rad piaware[3585]: piaware version 10.2 is running, process ID 3585
Oct 05 16:00:29 rad piaware[3585]: your system info is: Linux rad 6.12.25+rpt-rpi-v7 #1 SMP Raspbian 1:6.12.25-1+rpt1 (2025-04-30) armv7l GNU/Linux
Oct 05 16:00:29 rad piaware[3585]: *** bit out of range 0 - FD_SETSIZE on fd_set ***: terminated
Oct 05 16:00:29 rad systemd[1]: piaware.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=6/ABRT
Oct 05 16:00:29 rad systemd[1]: piaware.service: Failed with result 'signal'.
Oct 05 16:00:59 rad systemd[1]: piaware.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 82.
Oct 05 16:00:59 rad systemd[1]: Stopped piaware.service - FlightAware ADS-B uploader.
Oct 05 16:01:00 rad systemd[1]: Started piaware.service - FlightAware ADS-B uploader.
Oct 05 16:01:00 rad piaware[3593]: creating pidfile /run/piaware/piaware.pid
Oct 05 16:01:00 rad piaware[3593]: ****************************************************
Oct 05 16:01:00 rad piaware[3593]: piaware version 10.2 is running, process ID 3593
Oct 05 16:01:00 rad piaware[3593]: your system info is: Linux rad 6.12.25+rpt-rpi-v7 #1 SMP Raspbian 1:6.12.25-1+rpt1 (2025-04-30) armv7l GNU/Linux
Oct 05 16:01:00 rad piaware[3593]: *** bit out of range 0 - FD_SETSIZE on fd_set ***: terminated
Oct 05 16:01:00 rad systemd[1]: piaware.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=6/ABRT
Oct 05 16:01:00 rad systemd[1]: piaware.service: Failed with result 'signal'.
Oct 05 16:01:30 rad systemd[1]: piaware.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 83.

What could be causing piaware to fail?

2

Maybe the sdcard is failing, that might also explain why piaware failed to start in the first place?

3

I’ll try a new SD card even though I’ve run a disk check on it a couple of times and reformatted it too.

4 
 *** bit out of range 0 - FD_SETSIZE on fd_set ***

Apparently there has a been an issue with tcl in earlier versions of piaware, connected to disabling/enabling ip6.

2 Likes
5

Thank you, that seemed to be the issue. I re-enabled ipv6 and it started working.

1 Like
6

I want to get rid of ipv6, is there a clean way of doing so without breaking piaware?

7

Did you have one problem or two?
Your original symptoms sounded like a failing SD card (I’ve had the same where diag’s say it’s fine, but fails in service).
Did you make IPv6 changes while still using the original card?

8

The problem was ipv6 that I had disabled. The original card was checked for errors, reformatted multiple times and re-imaged. Every new install with ipv6 disabled presented the same issue including a new card that I had made before @biekerc pointed me in the right direction.

The last time I just removed disable.ipv6=1 from cmdline.txt and piaware started working.