Other stuff running on Port 80 - can't start Apache

I had XAMPP for Mac installed - working fine for a year or more. Suddenly, I would try to view localhost sites and got nothing. No errors, just a totally blank page (view source shows nada). I uninstalled and reinstalled XAMPP - now I try to start Apache and get an error that something else is running on Port 80. I found a suggestion to run

sudo lsof -i :80 # checks port 80

on the Terminal so I did that and got the info below. I have no idea what any of it means or how to stop all of this stuff so I can start Apache. Any help will be MOST appreciated.

prl_disp_ 172 root 51u IPv4 0x08a92b58 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.136:49174->72.21.81.253:http (ESTABLISHED)
Dropbox 221 myun 11u IPv4 0x10771708 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.136:53489->sjc-not8.sjc.dropbox.com:http (ESTABLISHED)
httpd 1138 root 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 1140 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 1141 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 1142 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 1143 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 1144 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
firefox 2041 myun 40u IPv4 0x0d087f28 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.136:55299->gg-in-f147.1e100.net:http (ESTABLISHED)
firefox 2041 myun 42u IPv4 0x095e3f28 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.136:55274->yh-in-f102.1e100.net:http (ESTABLISHED)
httpd 2043 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 2044 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)

ttl,

I’ve not worked with a Mac for too many years to admit so I’ll be of little help.

WinDoze uses a command, netstat, which shows all the computer’s connections including ports. That will typically “find” the http daemon (Apache, IIS, etc) OR Skype using Port 80. Since it’s first come, first served, that’s what determines the application which “owns” the port.

It looks like your Dropbox “owns” the port (although it looks like it’s port 53489, not port 80) but something (Dropbox) is listening to port 80 for connections.

I hope you can find something in all that which helps.

Regards,

DK

I appreciate the help. I know pretty much zilch about servers so if you can help me with that part, I may be able to translate to my Mac. I shut down Dropbox, shut down Firefox, ran the command again and got this:

COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
prl_disp_ 172 root 51u IPv4 0x08a92b58 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.136:49174->72.21.81.253:http (ESTABLISHED)
httpd 1138 root 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 1140 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 1141 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 1142 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 1143 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 1144 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 2043 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd 2044 nobody 5u IPv6 0x08a8e460 0t0 TCP *:http (LISTEN)

What now?

ttl,

Is that your IP address? Obviously, 192.168.1.135 is but the TCP has established a link to your port 49174 via their 253 on that other address so, IF this is Skype, that’s what is causing your problem, otherwise … well, I don’t know what your prl_disp_ is but this connection is being run as ROOT so either find out what it is or get your firewall to cut it off ASAP (else you’re just a spambot).

Regards,

DK

Looks to me like apache is running …

What does this output?

ps aux | grep httpd

That’s not my IP address but uninstalling Skype fixed it! Thanks so much for the help.

If you want to keep skype you can reinstall it and then in the settings remove the tick in the checkbox “Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections” in the Advanced > Connection tab. That way you can have your cake and eat it too :slight_smile:

Ooooh . . . thanks so much for that tip. I was wondering what to do about Skype.

I’m back, unfortunately. XAMPP is working fine but I still have the issue that started all this a couple of weeks ago, namely that when I run a site through localhost, none of the content gets through. In other words, the pages are completely blank - view source reveals a blank page. I went to the error log - there may be some clues here (the Session Cache part?) but I don’t know what they are or how to fix them. I do know that we recently uploaded a live version of this site to an Amazon server that does have SSL. I don’t clone from the AWS site - I clone from the same testing server I’ve always used. But could it be that doing that put some extra code in that is messing things up on my Mac? I have clones of the same site on my Windows machine and it’s working fine. Here’s the error log:

[Sun Sep 30 08:49:30 2012] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]
[Sun Sep 30 08:49:33 2012] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication …
[Sun Sep 30 08:49:33 2012] [notice] Digest: done
[Sun Sep 30 08:49:34 2012] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8l PHP/5.3.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured – resuming normal operations
[Sun Sep 30 09:18:28 2012] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sun Sep 30 09:20:18 2012] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]
[Sun Sep 30 09:20:24 2012] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication …
[Sun Sep 30 09:20:24 2012] [notice] Digest: done
[Sun Sep 30 09:20:25 2012] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8l PHP/5.3.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured – resuming normal operations
[Sun Sep 30 09:33:26 2012] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sun Sep 30 09:34:41 2012] [warn] Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]
[Sun Sep 30 09:34:44 2012] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication …
[Sun Sep 30 09:34:44 2012] [notice] Digest: done
[Sun Sep 30 09:34:46 2012] [notice] Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.14 OpenSSL/0.9.8l PHP/5.3.1 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured – resuming normal operations
[Sun Sep 30 22:02:51 2012] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] script ‘/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/ShrinkOffice/login.php’ not found or unable to stat

I’ve been playing with this and am hoping this info will help. I have an old folder of the site that was cloned (goes to rev 2047). I can pull it up just fine on my Mac localhost. But if I try to update it to rev 2048, I get the blank pages. Also, I used the Terminal to clone an entirely new version of the site and only cloned to rev 2047 (the last one that worked). New clones to 2047 do NOT work despite the fact that that old folder does. Given that, am I right in thinking that some changes must have happened on the testing server and/or the code around that time that’s causing this?

A very long shot, but 2048 is part of the byte code sequencing of operating systems, could the error be the O.S. misinterpreting the number? Try moving this to a folder called 2048a or 2049 and see what happens?

Steve

A very interesting suggestion! Actually, I realized that I had forgotten to add the config file after I cloned the new site. When I did that, it fixed the problem. That still doesn’t explain why this happened in the first place on a version of the site that DID have the config file and that had been working just fine, but maybe that was fixed with the Skype problem. Thanks for the suggestion.