init.d scripts does not start if not called with systemctl

Issue

• When starting an initscript directly (without systemctl), the service does not start:

  $ /etc/init.d/foo start
  Starting foo (via systemctl):  Job for foo.service failed because a timeout was exceeded.
  See "systemctl status foo.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
                                                             [FAILED]
  

• It starts only if called with systemctl:

  # systemctl start foo                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
  # systemctl status foo                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
  ● foo.service - LSB: Dummy Daemon                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/rc.d/init.d/foo; generated)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-12-11 03:54:02 EST; 13s ago                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
       Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 11195)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
     Memory: 1.5M                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
     CGroup: /system.slice/foo.service                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
             ├─6035 sleep 1000                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
             └─6186 /usr/local/bin/foo                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
  
  Dec 11 03:54:02 rhel8 systemd[1]: Started LSB: Dummy Daemon.