SOLVED: Libvirt + kvm handshake error

Question

linux

Short.
When trying to start the virtual machine LOCALLY using libvirt in conjunction with kvm, we get:
libvirt: error : libvirtd quit during handshake: Input/output error
Detailed.
We have the following environment

media / # uname -a
Linux media 3.12.6-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Dec 20 19:39:00 CET 2013 x86_64 GNU/Linux
media / # libvirtd --version
libvirtd (libvirt) 1.2.0
media / # virsh --version
1.2.0
media / # qemu-system-x86_64 --version
QEMU emulator version 1.7.0, Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Fabrice Bellard
media / # lsmod | grep kvm
kvm_amd                52575  0 
kvm                   388773  1 kvm_amd

I'm trying to run the test virtual machine locally using virsh, there is no talk of network management yet.
When launched directly from kvm, the process starts and functions fully. However:

media libvirt # virsh start test  
error: Failed to start domain test
error: Activation of org.freedesktop.machine1 timed out

As a result, in the log we find:

2014-01-04 07:19:17.061+0000: starting up
LC_ALL=C PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin \
QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=none /usr/sbin/qemu-system-x86_64 \
-name test -S -machine pc-i440fx-1.7,accel=kvm,usb=off \
...
...
libvirt:  error : libvirtd quit during handshake: Input/output error
2014-01-04 07:19:42.074+0000: shutting down

Active googling of the issue only leads to the presence of a bug, which, supposedly, has already been fixed long ago.
Cloned git from libvirt.org, tried the last three versions - the situation has not changed.
I hope someone faced a similar problem, I will be grateful for any help.

Answer 1

It turned out that the problem was in the version of systemd. Upgrading to a less stable but newer version (208.3 => 208.9) solved the problem.