Job for apache2.service failed because the control process exited with error code.

Question

Problem :

I am trying to restart my apache from terminal using the following command:

sudo service apache2 restart

But when executing above command I am facing below error:

Job for apache2.service failed. See "systemctl status apache2.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

On executing the "systemctl status apache2.service" I got below output

apache2.service - (null)

   Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/apache2)

   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2019-12-16 02:22:41 IST; 12s ago

     Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)

  Process: 4866 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/apache2 start (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Please find below my apache error.log

AH00489: Apache/2.4.12 (Unix) configured -- resuming normal operations

AH00094: Command line: '/usr/local/apache2/bin/httpd'

Answer 1

The problem is occurring because of some configuration files are deleted, so you have to reinstall them as below.

REINSTALL THE APACHE2:

To replace your configuration files that have been deleted, and without purging your package, you can do as below :

sudo apt-get -o DPkg::Options::="--force-confmiss" --reinstall install apache2

To fully remove your apache2 config files, you should try:

sudo apt-get purge apache2

Which will then allow you to reinstall it in the usual way with below command:

sudo apt-get install apache2

Purge is required when you want to remove all the config files - if you delete just the config files but you only remove the package, then this is remembered & the missing config files are not reinstalled by default.

Then REINSTALL PHP5 as below :

apt-get purge libapache2-mod-php5 php5 && \

apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 php5

Answer 2

Maybe this will help to trace the reason:

journalctl | tail

In my instance it was a mistake in the configuration file:

AH00526: Syntax error on line 5 of /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mydomain-wsf.lan.conf

There is few syntax error in the file apache2.conf.

In a terminal, type:

cd /etc/apache2

Then:

apache2ctl configtest

It will display you where is the error in the apache2.conf file to correct

The issue is since few configuration files are deleted, you have to reinstall it.

REINSTALL APACHE2:

To replace configuration files that have been deleted, without purging the package, you can work:

sudo apt-get -o DPkg::Options::="--force-confmiss" --reinstall install apache2

To totally remove the apache2 config files, you must:

sudo apt-get purge apache2

which will then let you reinstall it in the simple method with:

sudo apt-get install apache2

Purge is necessary to remove all the config files - in case you delete the config files however just remove the package, then this is remembered & missing config files are not reinstalled by default.

Then REINSTALL PHP5:

apt-get purge libapache2-mod-php5 php5 && \
apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 php5

I got the similar error after removing a virtual host. The problem was the lingering SSL conf file attached with that host located in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled. The SSL was through Let's Encrypt hence the code for me to remove was:

sudo rm yourdomain.com-le-ssl.conf

in case you use

sudo apt-get install apache2

to install Apache2