Issue with "Installing service" when trying to push images locally or via balenaCloud to edge device

[anu]

Hi all,

I got started with Balena today and have bene able to get multi-container Docker setup on the device. I have some services that are pulling an image from the GitHub Container Registry which I was able to set up by passing in a Personal Access Token via –registry-secrets flag.

However, on the device (whether pushing from cloud or building locally), I continuously see “Installing service…” and nothing more.

[Logs]    [2026-04-01T04:31:16.752Z] Installing service 'edge-upload-handler sha256:1ce4f2e04ae8297b47464ec018a9fcddafb4553e9581ef79d605dd8fdc0bfa2f'
[Logs]    [2026-04-01T04:31:16.755Z] Installing service 'edge-agent sha256:5ae44e130356301d08e7d31e5b23a3c701b91e6b39534ef4744a3ea4e72c5f09'
[Logs]    [2026-04-01T04:31:16.770Z] Installing service 'edge-webrtc-signaling sha256:69766d7d00c4cd01adb3315e50f1b1f9ada47c7d3cc897ca513580d565f42eef'

When going to the device, I can see the images using balena-engine images but I’m unable to start those services. Any idea or pointers for how to debug this custom service hanging during “Installing service” would be greatly appreciated!

Output of balena-engine images:

This suggests the images were able to be pushed and built on balena-cloud but aren’t being installed for some reason.

[drskullster]

Hi Anu,

Welcome to the forums!

This is not something I came across before. Can you maybe look for more logs in the journal? See the Device Debugging Masterclass for how to do that.

I see that your organization is on a paid plan, it’s useful to mention that you can use our paid support system for faster response time and device support access.

If you do reach out via our support system, please enable support access to the device and share its UUID in the ticket.