The most likely issue is that the service does not have permissions to read or write the startupfile. The output of systemct1 status startup.service shows that the service has failed to start and the error message is "Permission denied". The output of ls -l /etc/startupfile shows that the file has the permissions -rw-r--r--, which means that only the owner (root) can read and write the file, while the group (root) and others can only read the file. The service may not run as root and may need write access to the file. The administrator should change the permissions of the file by using the chmod command and grant write access to the group or others, or change the owner or group of the file by using the chown command and assign it to the user or group that runs the service. The other options are incorrect because they are not supported by the outputs. The file size, owner, and group are not the causes of the issue. Reference: CompTIA Linux+ (XK0-005) Certification Study Guide, Chapter 11: Managing Files and Directories, pages 345-346.