please check your syslog about an error message from apache during startup. we can not help but only guess with too little information.
best guess would be that your network interface/dhcp is not ready and therefore apache can’t bind to it. we had such cases, you might want to search the forum for more information.
I know you from lowendtalk too, I know you don’t like to write solution when its already there, but I have searched in the fourm and google and didnt find any solution so thats why I write the post,
Its really strange that this happend in 4 servers and they are all new but they are from hetzner and built on ubuntu install image.
and it’s not that I wouldn’t share the solution, it’s just I can’t know it, because the real reason is unclear and somewhere hidden on your system.
as said before, I suspect your apache not being able to bind itself to the network interface or port because that interface is not ready at the point apache starts. but it could be other things as well.
I understand that it’s weird to see that behaviour on comparable systems and can’t tell you why that is. maybe you still installed thing in a slightly different order or the network setup differs (do you run a vlan there) - or it’s not related to the network at all and my guess is wrong
I am sure you’ll figure it out anyway and if you have more info, I am happy to help.