How to check a snap service status

Some snaps provide background services in addition to user-facing commands or desktop launchers. Checking snap service status shows whether those daemons are enabled at startup and whether they are currently active, inactive, socket-activated, or timer-activated.

The snap services command reports the service view managed by snapd. It is narrower than a full systemctl unit list because it groups services by snap name and uses snapd's startup and current-state labels.

A completed check should identify the exact service name and the expected Startup and Current values. Use snap logs next when a service is inactive or failing unexpectedly.

1. List snap services on the system.

   $ snap services
   Service                    Startup  Current   Notes
   lxd.activate               enabled  inactive  -
   lxd.daemon                 enabled  active    socket-activated
   lxd.user-daemon            enabled  inactive  socket-activated
   nextcloud.apache           enabled  active    -
   nextcloud.mysql            enabled  active    -

2. Check services for one snap.

   $ snap services lxd
   Service          Startup  Current   Notes
   lxd.activate     enabled  inactive  -
   lxd.daemon       enabled  active    socket-activated
   lxd.user-daemon  enabled  inactive  socket-activated

3. Check one service by its full snap service name.

   $ snap services lxd.daemon
   Service     Startup  Current  Notes
   lxd.daemon  enabled  active   socket-activated

4. Read recent logs when the state is not expected.

   $ sudo snap logs lxd.daemon
   2026-06-24T09:30:12+08:00 lxd.daemon[1482]: => LXD is ready

   Related: How to view snap service logs

5. Inspect snapd change records when a service state changed after a refresh or restart.

   $ snap changes
   ID   Status  Spawn               Ready               Summary
   45   Done    today at 09:29 +08  today at 09:30 +08  Restart "lxd.daemon" snap service

   Related: How to check snap changes and tasks