Apache2 won't start after upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04 LTS to 24.04 LTS

Community Support System
1

I’ve searched the forum for similar problems, tried the suggestions (below), but still haven’t found the solution. Hopefully, somebody here can chime in.

Server: VPS on Oracle Cloud. Upgraded from Ubuntu 20.04 to 24.04LTS via 22.04.

Problem: After the upgrade, Apache2 won’t start and is marked red in the Hestia (1.9.2) panel.

What I’ve tried:

Since running the dist-upgrade and hitting the apache2 problem, I’ve followed the suggestions in previous threads, such as:

Logs:
The apache2.log in /var/log/apache2 doesn’t show anything useful, apart from a generic “Apache2 didn’t start” type message.

Has anyone found a fix?
Any suggestions as to where I can find more instructive logs?

2

First you need to know what you need to fix :wink:

apache2ctl configtest
systemctl restart apache2
sleep 5
systemctl status apache2 --no-pager -l
3

When I run:

apache2ctl configtest

I get:
Command ‘apache2ctl’ not found, but can be installed with:
apt install apache2

So I run:

apt install apache2

I get:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
apache2 : Depends: apache2-utils (= 2.4.58-1ubuntu8.5) but 2.4.63-1+ubuntu20.04.1+deb.sury.org+1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Any ideas?

4

Mmmm, if apache2 is not installed…

apt-mark showhold
5

Thanks for bearing with me.

Command: apt-mark showhold

Returns nothing - just returns to the next CLI prompt.

By the way, this is the 3rd server that this has happened to. All had the same spec, setup and upgrade process. I had to wipe and reinstall the other 2 over the weekend. Hoping I can figure out what’s going on. All servers were running fine beforehand - I decided to update from 20.04 because of approaching EOL support.

BTW - during the upgrade process, whenever the system proposed replacing .conf files, I always chose NO, keep existing modified file.

6

Did you change all the repositories to use noble?

7

I don’t recall changing repositories during the process. Here’s the contents of /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources:

Types: deb
URIs: Index of /ubuntu-ports
Suites: noble noble-updates noble-backports
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

Types: deb
URIs: Index of /ubuntu-ports
Suites: noble-security
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

8

You should have more repos in that dir

9

What other repos should I add? The ones currently in /ubuntu.sources seem to be the official recommendations of Ubuntu since 24.04.

https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man5/sources.list.5.html

10

You should at least have these:

$ ls -l /etc/apt/sources.list.d
total 20
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 106 Feb  8 04:04 hestia.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 142 Feb  8 04:04 mariadb.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 124 Feb  8 04:04 nginx.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 109 Feb 12 23:46 nodejs.list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 109 Feb  8 04:04 php.list
11

My output is:

ls -l /etc/apt/sources.list.d

total 32
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 95 Feb 23 17:12 apache2.list.distUpgrade
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 107 Feb 23 17:12 apache2.sources
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 103 Feb 24 10:49 hestia.list
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 103 Feb 23 17:12 hestia.list.distUpgrade
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 139 Feb 23 17:12 mariadb.list.distUpgrade
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 121 Feb 23 17:12 nginx.list.distUpgrade
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 121 May 17 2022 nginx.list.save
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 413 Feb 23 17:12 ubuntu.sources

12

Check if the sources are enabled and with noble instead of focal

13

Seems to be using noble throughout, apart from apache2.sources which is using jammy, but is not enabled. Should I change this to noble and enable it?

cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources

Types: deb
URIs: Index of /ubuntu-ports
Suites: noble noble-updates noble-backports
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

Types: deb
URIs: Index of /ubuntu-ports
Suites: noble-security
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/apache2.sources

Enabled: no
Types: deb
URIs: Index of /ondrej/apache2/ubuntu
Suites: jammy
Components: main

cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources

Types: deb
URIs: Index of /ubuntu-ports
Suites: noble noble-updates noble-backports
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

Types: deb
URIs: Index of /ubuntu-ports
Suites: noble-security
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

14

Yes, do it.

15

So, I had the same problem, but before I added the NOBLE to my sources.list - witch probably would have fixed the problem - I uninstalled Apache2 but left the configs. But then I could not reinstall because of the jammy. After replacing jammy with noble, I was able to install Apach2 and the required dependencies. I did have to replace the /etc/apache2/apache2.conf with the Hestia version.

Now apache2 starts but all my sites except for admin show a blank white page.

PS I am using cloud flare for DNS and have enabled Development Mode to bypass cache. Any suggestions?

16

Unfortunately, none of the proposed solutions offered in this thread were able to resolve the situation for me, resulting in complete reinstall of 5 servers. Sorry to hear that you’re encountering the same problem and hope you get it resolved. If you do find a solution, it would be helpful to post it here in case anyone else finds this thread.

17

Thank you for your reply and sorry to here you had to reinstall. I may be going to have to do that too.

I do now think the issue is related to the the connection between apache2 and php.

If anyone has suggestions how to troubleshoot apache2 / php relations that would be much appreciated.

18

Show the output of these commands:

systemctl status apache2 --no-pager -l
dpkg -l | grep '^ii.*apache2'
grep -i includeopt /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
apache2ctl -M | grep -E 'mpm|php'
ls -l /etc/apache2/
ls -l /etc/apache2/conf.d/
19 
ubuntu@OCI-HCP:~$ systemctl status apache2 --no-pager -l
● apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2025-03-17 14:42:23 PDT; 10min ago
       Docs: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/
    Process: 1439 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/apachectl start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 4655 ExecReload=/usr/sbin/apachectl graceful (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 1951
      Tasks: 55 (limit: 28691)
     Memory: 19.6M (peak: 20.3M)
        CPU: 367ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
             ├─1951 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             ├─4664 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             └─4665 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

Mar 17 14:42:11 OCI-HCP.SPXZDTE.com systemd[1]: Starting apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server...
Mar 17 14:42:22 OCI-HCP.SPXZDTE.com apachectl[1735]: AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using OCI-HCP.SPXZDTE.com. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message
Mar 17 14:42:23 OCI-HCP.SPXZDTE.com systemd[1]: Started apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server.
Mar 17 14:46:05 OCI-HCP.SPXZDTE.com systemd[1]: Reloading apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server...
Mar 17 14:46:05 OCI-HCP.SPXZDTE.com apachectl[4658]: AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using OCI-HCP.SPXZDTE.com. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message
Mar 17 14:46:05 OCI-HCP.SPXZDTE.com systemd[1]: Reloaded apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server.
20 
ubuntu@OCI-HCP:~$ dpkg -l | grep '^ii.*apache2'
ii  apache2                                 2.4.63-1+ubuntu24.04.1+deb.sury.org+2    arm64        Apache HTTP Server
ii  apache2-bin                             2.4.63-1+ubuntu24.04.1+deb.sury.org+2    arm64        Apache HTTP Server (modules and other binary files)
ii  apache2-data                            2.4.63-1+ubuntu24.04.1+deb.sury.org+2    all          Apache HTTP Server (common files)
ii  apache2-utils                           2.4.63-1+ubuntu24.04.1+deb.sury.org+2    arm64        Apache HTTP Server (utility programs for web servers)
ubuntu@OCI-HCP:~$