Sabnzbd - issues re-installing and running service

General system Applications
1

Edit Edit: Solved it. Was permission error and admin page wrongly linked in .ini file. No idea how that happened. Used ChatGPT to figure it out.

What solved it:
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/sabnzbd/admin
sudo chown -R sabnzbd:sabnzbd /var/lib/sabnzbd
sudo chmod -R 750 /var/lib/sabnzbd
sudo nano /var/lib/sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini
changed admin_dir=admin to admin_dir = /var/lib/sabnzbd/admin

Then ran the typical commands to refresh updates and restart service:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart sabnzbd
sudo systemctl status sabnzbd

Status showed everything running.

Ran this to check if databases were correctly added.
sudo ls -l /var/lib/sabnzbd/admin

Old Questions:
Hey, I’m a bit stuck. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
A few days ago I scrubbed Sab completely from my system. In the process, cleaned out all groups, gshadow, etc to get rid of everything sab.

Today, my ADHD monkey brain changed its mind, and I want to keep it just in case. Upon re-installing today, it doesn’t seem to install properly.

Edit — Updated info:
It’s installed properly now, but it is having database errors during status.

[memiru@memiru ~]$ sudo systemctl status sabnzbd.service
× sabnzbd.service - SABnzbd binary newsreader
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/sabnzbd.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2025-10-24 14:22:26 CEST; 8s ago
Duration: 710ms
Invocation: d431b102f93d4691ba7a4250c68f8b96
Process: 78444 ExecStart=/usr/lib/sabnzbd/SABnzbd.py --logging 0 --config-file /var/lib/sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 78444 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Mem peak: 50.3M
CPU: 658ms

Oct 24 14:22:26 memiru sabnzbd[78444]: return func(*args, **kw)
Oct 24 14:22:26 memiru sabnzbd[78444]: File “/usr/lib/sabnzbd/sabnzbd/database.py”, line 61, in _init_
Oct 24 14:22:26 memiru sabnzbd[78444]: self.connect()
Oct 24 14:22:26 memiru sabnzbd[78444]: ~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
Oct 24 14:22:26 memiru sabnzbd[78444]: File “/usr/lib/sabnzbd/sabnzbd/database.py”, line 69, in connect
Oct 24 14:22:26 memiru sabnzbd[78444]: self.connection = sqlite3.connect(HistoryDB.db_path)
Oct 24 14:22:26 memiru sabnzbd[78444]: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Oct 24 14:22:26 memiru sabnzbd[78444]: sqlite3.OperationalError: unable to open database file
Oct 24 14:22:26 memiru systemd[1]: sabnzbd.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 24 14:22:26 memiru systemd[1]: sabnzbd.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.

Before Edits (you can skip this):

No errors during install. Yet it doesn’t install correctly.

Dunno if it’s a user/group/permission related issue since I took those out, or if it’s something else.

I did add the sabnzbd back into a newly created sabnzbd group in groups. Also chmodded the sabnzbd folder in /var/lib.

In /usb/lib/ the entire sabnzbd directory where .py file should be is missing, and upon checking status for the service I get this in return.

[memiru@memiru ~]$ sudo systemctl status sabnzbd.service
× sabnzbd.service - SABnzbd binary newsreader
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/sabnzbd.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2025-10-24 13:01:55 CEST; 19min ago
Duration: 44ms
Invocation: 2a2438394ee8418da4018992fc09ad76
Process: 1073 ExecStart=/usr/lib/sabnzbd/SABnzbd.py --logging 0 --config-file /var/lib/sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)
Main PID: 1073 (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)
Mem peak: 1.8M
CPU: 4ms

Oct 24 13:01:55 memiru systemd[1]: Started SABnzbd binary newsreader.
Oct 24 13:01:55 memiru (Bnzbd.py)[1073]: sabnzbd.service: Unable to locate executable ‘/usr/lib/sabnzbd/SABnzbd.py’: No such file or directory
Oct 24 13:01:55 memiru (Bnzbd.py)[1073]: sabnzbd.service: Failed at step EXEC spawning /usr/lib/sabnzbd/SABnzbd.py: No such file or directory
Oct 24 13:01:55 memiru systemd[1]: sabnzbd.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=203/EXEC
Oct 24 13:01:55 memiru systemd[1]: sabnzbd.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.

Edit:
in yay -Qm doesn’t list sabnzbd. Upon reinstall it now shows.

Still not generating the /usr/lib/sabnzbd dir or files.

groups sabnzbd returns sabnzbd : groups: cannot find name for group ID 952

Edit 2:
Now I have the folder and .py generated. Still not getting the service started as it is trying to read the database file from /usb/lib/sabnzbd/sabnzbd/database.py instead of /usb/lib/sabnzbd/sabnzbd/database.py. The file is there.

2

I don’t want to hack your topic.

But I can’t get it working.

Just installed it from the AUR.

It won’t open, can’t find it in the applications.

Any idea?

(I used NNTPGrab on Linux Mint before, on W*ndows, I used Newslazer & Sabnzbd)

3

All good.

Sab uses a web interface. No clue about Newslazer, as I’ve mainly used sonarr, radarr, etc.

Did you run these?

1: systemctl start sabnzbd.service
2: sudo systemctl enable sabnzbd.service

Did you try to open this in your browser? http://localhost:8080/sabnzbd/

If yes, check systemctl status sabnzbd.service

1 Like
4

This works.

Are there any other good programs?

is NZBGet any good?

5

Haven’t tried it myself. Only used SAB, mainly because of how well documented the wiki is and configuration options. Plus it’s been very stable.

Do you use any automation extensions like Sonarr, Radarr, Bazarr etc?

6

I use NZBGet here. Work very well. Never had any issue with it. I was using Sabnzbd long time ago but moved to NZBGet because I had issue with it and support was waning at some point in the past.

7

No, I used only Sabnzbd & later Newslazer.

It’s also a app for for linux.

But can it be installed on Endeavour / Arch?