Topic: httpd dead but pid file exists

[Danny WOng]

My Http server is dead on SME 5.5 but I cant get it to restart.  Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot this?  I have looked in the postings but found nothing.  I do ps aux | grep httpd but no pid exists really.  I want to get it back up so I can backup my system then upgrade box.  But it is dead.  Please HELP!  

[Danny WOng]

additional info:  I have tried rebooting it, restarting it, and swearing at it.  None of the above work.

[Nathan Fowler]

/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd-admin stop
rm -rf /var/run/httpd.pid
rm -rf /var/run/httpd-admin.pid
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd-admin start

That should work.

[Danny WOng]

Unfortunately this did not work.  The httpd.pid and httpd-admin.pid did not exist.  I entered the commands anyway, recieved no errors, but after keying those commands as you posted, I still get httpd is dead but pid file exists.    any other suggestions?

[Nathan Fowler]

Nuts.

cat /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf|grep pid

Then, see if that pid-file exists, if it does, nuke it.

[Dan Brown]

...or, take a look at /var/log/httpd/error_log, and see why it's crashing.

[Danny Wong]

checking the error log worked thanks!