"Waiting for localhost..." localhost won't load ou

[sbarry50]

Hi,

I have been using Xampp lite for a few weeks now while I have been building a wordpress blog to test it locally. I did not have any issues with it until today. Whenever I would go to localhost in FF it would just sit there and say "Waiting for localhost...", nothing would appear and it would eventually just say "Done". This just started happening out of the blue for no apparent reason. I have not installed anything new to the computer. It's like it just doesn't feel like working anymore. After troubleshooting for a while with no answers I found Wamp and installed it. Initially it worked great. My site was appearing when I would input [localhost]. Shortly thereafter, I restarted my computer and it started doing the same thing as Xampp did. I have run portchecks over and over making sure the right ones are running when they are supposed to on the right ports. I haven't installed anything new since today and the last time I used Xampp. I have run virus scans, disabled windows firewall, uninstalled Xampp and reinstalled Wamp, reinstalled Xampp, and uninstalled Wamp with no avail. IIS is not running on my machine. I have no idea why it would stop working out of the blue. It does the same thing in IE and Firefox.

I've been looking through the forums and have found people having similar problems but none of the suggested solutions have solved it. I've added Win32DisableAcceptEx to the end of the httpd file, triple checked windows firewall including disabling and opening port 80 on it. I do not have Skype (never have), I have Win XP Pro. Also I have not found any clues in the error logs. Here's an example for today. I have verfied over and over again that apache is running on port 80 and mysql is running on 3306.

[Tue Jan 15 08:55:12 2008] [notice] Parent: Received shutdown signal -- Shutting down the server.
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:12 2008] [notice] Child 2816: Exit event signaled. Child process is ending.
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:13 2008] [notice] Child 2816: Released the start mutex
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:14 2008] [notice] Child 2816: Waiting for 250 worker threads to exit.
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:42 2008] [notice] Parent: Forcing termination of child process 296
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:47 2008] [notice] Apache/2.2.6 (Win32) PHP/5.2.5 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:47 2008] [notice] Server built: Sep 5 2007 08:58:56
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:47 2008] [notice] Parent: Created child process 3444
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:47 2008] [notice] Child 3444: Child process is running
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:47 2008] [notice] Child 3444: Acquired the start mutex.
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:47 2008] [notice] Child 3444: Starting 250 worker threads.
[Tue Jan 15 08:55:48 2008] [notice] Child 3444: Starting thread to listen on port 80.
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:45 2008] [notice] Parent: Received shutdown signal -- Shutting down the server.
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:45 2008] [notice] Child 3444: Exit event signaled. Child process is ending.
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:46 2008] [notice] Child 3444: Released the start mutex
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:47 2008] [notice] Child 3444: Waiting for 250 worker threads to exit.
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:47 2008] [notice] Child 3444: All worker threads have exited.
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:47 2008] [notice] Child 3444: Child process is exiting
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:47 2008] [notice] Parent: Child process exited successfully.
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:52 2008] [notice] Apache/2.2.6 (Win32) PHP/5.2.5 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:52 2008] [notice] Server built: Sep 5 2007 08:58:56
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:52 2008] [notice] Parent: Created child process 3176
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:52 2008] [notice] Child 3176: Child process is running
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:52 2008] [notice] Child 3176: Acquired the start mutex.
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:52 2008] [notice] Child 3176: Starting 250 worker threads.
[Tue Jan 15 08:56:52 2008] [notice] Child 3176: Starting thread to listen on port 80.

Can some please help???

[Izzy]

Thanks for a detailed post - most refreshing.
(but please try and split those long paragraphs into much easier to read smaller sections- thanks).

You seem to have done most things to effect a solution except perhaps temporarily disabling your virus scanner and/or ZoneAlarm.

If this also has no effect, then you can enable them again after the test.

There are known issues with ZoneAlarm and XAMPP, if you are using this prog.

According to your log file something is closing your server.

[Tue Jan 15 08:56:45 2008] [notice] Parent: Received shutdown signal -- Shutting down the server.

Check if your Windows Event Log, accessible from the Administrators Tools -> Event Viewer, has any clues.

[sbarry50]

No problem...will do next time.

I don't have a permanent virus scanner running or ZoneAlarm, atleast not to my knowledge.

I did keep trying a bunch of things and was starting and stopping the server myself manually. Perhaps that message was because of me?

I checked the event viewer. Those messages are a little beyond my computer knowledge at this point so here's a few of them that may be related. Maybe you can make something of them.

This one popped up about five times today. I know I have tried starting localhost more than that.

Windows saved user STEVESLAPTOP\Steve registry while an application or service was still using the registry during log off. The memory used by the user's registry has not been freed. The registry will be unloaded when it is no longer in use.

This is often caused by services running as a user account, try configuring the services to run in either the LocalService or NetworkService account.

This one was on there ALOT:

The description for Event ID ( 100 ) in Source ( MySQL ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: wampmysqld: ready for connections.
Version: '5.0.45-community-nt' socket: '' port: 3306 MySQL Community Edition (GPL)

This was on there a few times

Faulting application httpd.exe, version 2.2.6.0, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.1.2600.2180, fault address 0x00010f2b.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

I suppose this was on there from putting that code into that conf file

The Apache service named reported the following error:
>>> [Tue Jan 15 08:50:48 2008] [notice] Disabled use of AcceptEx() WinSock2 API .

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

That's pretty much it...just those repeated a bunch of times. Thanks for your help.

[Izzy]

Checking the web does not seem to come up with a definitive solution for the httpd.exe entry.

The MySQL entry looks like some residue from wamp after uninstalling.

BTW - only have one on board at a time either XAMPP or WAMP not both.

Try the remedies in relation to the Service Controller clean up for Apache and MySQL in this post, it won't hurt and may eliminate any registry entries that have been left behind after repeated installs.
http://community.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopi ... 772#113772

Manually search the registry for xampp entries or wamp entries that may be left overs after uninstalling.

This post, albeit a bit long winded, but on page 2 has some references to the registry search and other remedies perhaps:
http://community.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopic.php?t=21180

Check the Task Manager (right click on the Task Bar and select Task Manager ->Processes), after first stopping all XAMPP modules, to see if there are any instances of apache.exe or mysqld - there should be no entries.

When starting apache using the .\xampp\apache_start.bat file what messages are returned and does Apache start from this method?

Also try installing again with an older XAMPP version...
(using the non installer method of choice, as this does not make entries in the registry)
... from the Archive and see if it is version related - try 1.6.3a as I find this to be quite stable or try 1.6.4 which again I am led to believe is stable.

[sbarry50]

Well, I tried the first few things you had on the list. SC said it didn't exist. Nothing in the registry. Nothing in the task manager. The old versions didn't work either.

WHen I run the apache start file i get this message. I ran a portcheck and apache is running on port 80 & 443.

Diese Eingabeforderung nicht waehrend des Running beenden
Bitte erst bei einem gewollten Shutdown schliessen
Please close this command only for Shutdown
Apache 2 is starting ...

I don't know...I don't think it has anything to do with the registry or the repeated installs and uninstalls while I have been trying to fix it. Like I said before, I've been running this for weeks and it was working fine.

Last friday i was working on it, finished up, closed my computer. I did open it on Sunday and left a few programs running for quite awhile, enough to where it was hard to awaken from the screen saver, then shut it down. (I didn't work on Apache on Sunday) Then yesterday, I went to go work on Apache and it was no longer working anymore.

I didn't install anything new since the time it was working till the time it wasn't.