open service *influxdb.Service: failed to link subscription on startup: invalid character 'M' looking for beginning of value

> [run] 2017/10/20 17:05:20 I! Kapacitor starting, version 1.3.1, branch master, commit 3b5512f7276483326577907803167e4bb213c613
> [run] 2017/10/20 17:05:20 I! Go version go1.7.5
> [srv] 2017/10/20 17:05:20 I! Kapacitor hostname: localhost
> [srv] 2017/10/20 17:05:20 I! ClusterID: 1dca02e4-f02e-4cd1-adec-1ddb34f760ba ServerID: c98965d1-e6dc-4e3e-83fa-3afaa76e3a48
> [task_master:main] 2017/10/20 17:05:20 I! opened
> [httpd] 2017/10/20 17:05:20 I! Closed HTTP service
> [httpd] 2017/10/20 17:05:20 I! Closed HTTP service
> [task_master:main] 2017/10/20 17:05:20 I! closed
> [run] 2017/10/20 17:05:20 E! open server: open service *influxdb.Service: failed to link subscription on startup: invalid character 'M' looking for beginning of value

Start by examining the startup path for the influxdb.Service and the subscription-linking operation described in the log. Reproduce the Kapacitor 1.3.1 failure if possible and identify why a response beginning with 'M' is being parsed as JSON; done means startup completes without this error and the subscription links successfully.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.