John,
As Curt explained the install set up MMDVM_Bridge (and others) to start at boot. There will be times when you need to run in the foreground and all you need to do is make sure you are the only running copy unless you are running a more complex bridge.

systemctl has 6 commands you will want to know off the top of your head and quite a few more that -h or man systemctl will show you.

systemctl start mmdvm_bridge    # Start the mmdvm_bridge service
systemctl status mmdvm_bridge  # check the status of the mmdvm_bridge service. Is it running? is it enabled? any errors?
systemctl stop mmdvm_bridge     # stop the service IF it is running
systemctl restart mmdvm_bridge # restart the service (will also start it if not running) good for re-reading the config files.
systemctl enable mmdvm_bridge # setup the service to start at boot
systemctl disable mmdvm_bridge # stop the service from running at boot.

The 3 big ones for you with a running bridge are stop, start and status. Always check the status before running in the foreground.

Hope this helps,
Steve N4IRS 

On 7/24/19 5:03 PM, John - WB5NFC wrote:

Gentleman, thank you for identifying the source of my self-inflicted headache! Now that only one instance is running, there are no login/logout errors.

In trying to remember when or how I got into this twofer mess, I remember seeing the list of useful commands at the end of the setup document and trying them out. I just "assumed" anything started would reset after a boot. That little word sure gets people in trouble... thanks again, guys.