[newnewpdro]

> We had to update change /etc/systems/journald.conf with Storage=Auto to make it persistent.

RTFM

       Storage=
           Controls where to store journal data. One of "volatile", "persistent", "auto" and "none". If
           "volatile", journal log data will be stored only in memory, i.e. below the /run/log/journal
           hierarchy (which is created if needed). If "persistent", data will be stored preferably on disk,
           i.e. below the /var/log/journal hierarchy (which is created if needed), with a fallback to
           /run/log/journal (which is created if needed), during early boot and if the disk is not writable.
           "auto" is similar to "persistent" but the directory /var/log/journal is not created if needed, so
           that its existence controls where log data goes.  "none" turns off all storage, all log data
           received will be dropped. Forwarding to other targets, such as the console, the kernel log buffer,
           or a syslog socket will still work however. Defaults to "auto".

> Defaults to "auto".

You just need to have /var/log/journal. This is your distribution/installer failing you, don't blame systemd.

[throwaway8941]

This seems to be a typical case of Ubuntu brain damage. I don't think I've seen this behavior in other distributions (CentOS, Debian, Fedora, even Arch).

>On Ubuntu 16.04, /var/log/journal does not exist by default. Create it to keep and query events from previous boots.

[jimws]

I have seen this in CentOS. Also see https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/159390

[mongol]

OpenSuse is the same

[VintageCool]

Debian 9 and CentOS 7 both fail in this regard.