Influxdb service stuck on "activating"

OS = Ubuntu 18.04.01
InfluxDB version v2.6.1

systemctl status influxdb says Active: activating (start) and never leaves the state. Attempts to curl into the port gives,

(7) Failed to connect to localhost port 8086 after 0 ms: Connection Refused

The service repeatedly fails 89 times, then tries to restart and fails 89 more times in a loop. Below is the systemd log.

Feb 05 21:58:43 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[30930]: InfluxDB API at http://localhost:8086/ready unavailable after 89 attempts...
Feb 05 21:58:44 name systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Start operation timed out. Terminating.
Feb 05 21:58:44 name systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
Feb 05 21:58:44 name systemd[1]: Failed to start InfluxDB is an open-source, distributed, time series database.
Feb 05 21:58:44 name systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Feb 05 21:58:44 name systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 9618.
Feb 05 21:58:44 name systemd[1]: Stopped InfluxDB is an open-source, distributed, time series database.
Feb 05 21:58:44 name systemd[1]: Starting InfluxDB is an open-source, distributed, time series database...
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: Command "print-config" is deprecated, use the influx-cli command server-conf
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: ts=2023-02-06T02:58:44.895940Z lvl=info msg="Welcome to InfluxDB" log_id=0fq
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: ts=2023-02-06T02:58:44.900624Z lvl=info msg="Resources opened" log_id=0fqAR2
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: ts=2023-02-06T02:58:44.900810Z lvl=info msg="Resources opened" log_id=0fqAR2
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: ts=2023-02-06T02:58:44.906264Z lvl=info msg="Backing up pre-migration metada
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: ts=2023-02-06T02:58:44.906440Z lvl=error msg="Failed to apply SQL migrations
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: Error: failed to back up pre-migration metadata: open /hdd2/lib/influxdb/inf
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: See 'influxd -h' for help
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: Command "print-config" is deprecated, use the influx-cli command server-conf
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: Command "print-config" is deprecated, use the influx-cli command server-conf
Feb 05 21:58:44 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: InfluxDB API at http://localhost:8086/ready unavailable after 1 attempts...
Feb 05 21:58:46 name influxd-systemd-start.sh[31232]: InfluxDB API at http://localhost:8086/ready unavailable after 2 attempts...