Re: Pesky message: cannot stat /var/run/utmp. Please "unset watch".

On Thu, Jul 23, 2026 at 09:15:05 -0400, Robert Heller wrote:
> On a fresh install of trixie (Debian 13), I am getting this message.  Where is
> it coming from?
> 
> The message is:
> 
> cannot stat /var/run/utmp.  Please "unset watch".

It would help enormously if you told us what command you ran to produce
the message.

That said, the utmp file is no longer supported, partly because its
format is incompatible with 64-bit time_t.

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/release-notes/issues.en.html#the-last-lastb-and-lastlog-commands-have-been-replaced