Error on neo4j server start on arch linux - linux

Question

I have an arch linux setup and installed neo4j through the arch user repository (yaourt -S neo4j), and I'm able to run the web console fine (sudo neo4j console with seemingly normal output and full functionality), however when trying to start the server (sudo neo4j start), I encounter the following error message:
/usr/share/neo4j/bin/utils: line 345: [: -lt: unary operator expected
Using additional JVM arguments: -server -XX:+DisableExplicitGC -Dorg.neo4j.server.properties=/etc/neo4j/neo4j-server.properties -Djava.util.logging.config.file=/etc/neo4j/logging.properties -Dlog4j.configuration=file:/etc/neo4j/log4j.properties -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled
Starting Neo4j Server...cat: /run/neo4j/neo4j-service.pid: No such file or directory
process []... waiting for server to be ready. Failed to start within 120 seconds.
Neo4j Server may have failed to start, please check the logs.
rm: cannot remove ‘/run/neo4j/neo4j-service.pid’: No such file or directory
There's no delay before the error message is printed, so it seems to be something other than the timeout. I'm quite new to neo4j (I worked through a fair bit of the user manual using the web console, but no development or server config experience), so I'm not really sure what else might be relevant. I tried looking through the utils script and the error appears to be where it attempts to su neo4j, but it also seems to proceed to attempt to start the server. I also tried changing the port it's starting on as in this question, but no change. The only log I can find just has this over and over (with appropriate timestamps):
Oct 15, 2014 1:33:49 AM com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl _initiate
INFO: Initiating Jersey application, version 'Jersey: 1.9 09/02/2011 11:17 AM'
Any help at all would be appreciated!
EDIT:
The line 345 that it's failing on is the end of this snippet:
if [ $UID == 0 ] ; then
OPEN_FILES=`su $NEO4J_USER -c "ulimit -n"`
else
OPEN_FILES=`ulimit -n`
fi
if [ $OPEN_FILES -lt 40000 ]; then
From doing some echo debugging, it seems that su $NEO4J_USER is failing, probably because $NEO4J_USER is set to neo4j, a user that does not exist on my system. I tried setting that to root in one of the config files, but evidently that's not working properly. Arch is a continual learning experience for me, but I've not had to add a new user before to get software working.

Answer 1

The interesting line here is:
/usr/share/neo4j/bin/utils: line 345: [: -lt: unary operator expected
I assume that is caused by a wrong default shell for the neo4j user. What default is currently set for the neo4j system user? Try to switch that to bash. The startup scripts should work nicely with bash.