diff --git a/check_systemdservices b/check_systemdservices
index 234d9ea5dd41aaffb6ae96cc6b3ad8160b51ad92..565449976da9f2de28ccf7df2e77d2c2262a1e40 100755
--- a/check_systemdservices
+++ b/check_systemdservices
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
 # 2020-03-05  v1.1  <axel.hahn@iml.unibe.ch> switch to ph.* helper functions
 # 2020-04-02  v1.2  <axel.hahn@iml.unibe.ch> added ph.execIfReady in _init
 # 2021-10-21  v1.3  <axel.hahn@iml.unibe.ch> remove starting spaces in systemctl output
+# 2022-04-14  v1.4  <axel.hahn@iml.unibe.ch> remove any special chars at beginning of line
 # ================================================================================
 
 . `dirname $0`/inc_pluginfunctions
@@ -47,7 +48,7 @@ function _init(){
   rm -f ${tmpErrors} ${tmpOut} ${tmpOutOther} 2>/dev/null
   # systemctl --no-legend --no-pager --all --type service >${tmpServices}
   # systemctl --no-legend --no-pager --type service >${tmpServices}
-  ph.execIfReady "systemctl --no-legend --no-pager --type service" | sed "s#^\ *##g" | grep -vf ${ignorefile} >${tmpServices}
+  ph.execIfReady "systemctl --no-legend --no-pager --type service" | sed "s#^[^a-zA-Z0-9]*##g" | grep -vf ${ignorefile} >${tmpServices}
 }
 
 # get wanted services from service list