Localhost just stopped working

[xipe_totec]

Ok, a weird problem here. I'm working on a scrip, and hosting it on localhost (naturally), and today it started fritzing on me. Just stopped loading. Literally overnight. Yesterday it was working fine, today it's dead. Not even PhpMyAdmin loads. Firefox just keeps on loading, with a status of "waiting for localhost". I've made no changes to either XAMPP nor other system-based programs (like Avast! antivirus), apart from installing, heh, Dragon Age.

So, as far as I can tell, it just *poof*-stopped working.

Now, since I'm rather a noob, I was wondering, does anyone have any ideas from the description, and is there anything I can do to diagnose the problem?

Thanks in advance!

[Izzy]

What version of XAMPP and which Windows OS?

Is Apache and MySQL showing the green running indication in the XAMPP Control Panel?

Any clues in the \xampp\apache\logs\error.log file?

Any auto updates of Windows that might have triggered the Windows firewall etc.?

[xipe_totec]

XAMPP is 1.7.2
Windows 7 build 7600
Automatic updates all turned off, all windows-supplied security is off (firewall is down, virus is Avast! 4.8 ).

Control panel says that Apache and MySQL are running.
error.log for today is:

[Wed Nov 18 00:29:52 2009] [error] [client ::1] File does not exist: C:/Program Files/xampp/htdocs/favicon.ico
[Wed Nov 18 08:34:02 2009] [error] [client ::1] File does not exist: C:/Program Files/xampp/htdocs/favicon.ico
[Wed Nov 18 08:34:05 2009] [error] [client ::1] File does not exist: C:/Program Files/xampp/htdocs/favicon.ico
[Wed Nov 18 10:04:03 2009] [notice] Parent: Received shutdown signal -- Shutting down the server.
[Wed Nov 18 10:04:03 2009] [notice] Child 4824: Exit event signaled. Child process is ending.
[Wed Nov 18 10:04:04 2009] [notice] Child 4824: Released the start mutex
[Wed Nov 18 10:04:33 2009] [notice] Parent: Forcing termination of child process 664
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:36 2009] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:36 2009] [notice] Digest: done
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:38 2009] [notice] Apache/2.2.12 (Win32) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.12 OpenSSL/0.9.8k mod_autoindex_color PHP/5.3.0 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.0 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:38 2009] [notice] Server built: Jul 22 2009 11:35:54
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:38 2009] [notice] Parent: Created child process 2568
Terminating on signal SIGTERM(15)
] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:40 2009] [notice] Digest: done
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:41 2009] [notice] Child 2568: Child process is running
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:41 2009] [notice] Child 2568: Acquired the start mutex.
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:41 2009] [notice] Child 2568: Starting 150 worker threads.
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:41 2009] [notice] Child 2568: Starting thread to listen on port 443.
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:41 2009] [notice] Child 2568: Starting thread to listen on port 80.
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:41 2009] [notice] Child 2568: Starting thread to listen on port 80.
[Wed Nov 18 10:05:41 2009] [notice] Child 2568: Starting thread to listen on port 443.
Terminating on signal SIGTERM(15)
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:33 2009] [warn] pid file C:/Program Files/xampp/apache/logs/httpd.pid overwritten -- Unclean shutdown of previous Apache run?
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:33 2009] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:33 2009] [notice] Digest: done
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:36 2009] [notice] Apache/2.2.12 (Win32) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.12 OpenSSL/0.9.8k mod_autoindex_color PHP/5.3.0 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.0 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:36 2009] [notice] Server built: Jul 22 2009 11:35:54
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:36 2009] [notice] Parent: Created child process 2728
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:38 2009] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:38 2009] [notice] Digest: done
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:39 2009] [notice] Child 2728: Child process is running
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:39 2009] [notice] Child 2728: Acquired the start mutex.
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:39 2009] [notice] Child 2728: Starting 150 worker threads.
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:39 2009] [notice] Child 2728: Starting thread to listen on port 443.
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:39 2009] [notice] Child 2728: Starting thread to listen on port 443.
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:39 2009] [notice] Child 2728: Starting thread to listen on port 80.
[Wed Nov 18 10:59:39 2009] [notice] Child 2728: Starting thread to listen on port 80.
[Wed Nov 18 11:03:28 2009] [error] [client ::1] script 'C:/Program Files/xampp/htdocs/tests/autologin/rastavljanje.php' not found or unable to stat

If I'm not mistaken, "terminating on signal" is when I tried shutting Apache down and restarting it, via XAMPP Control Panel.
Also, I think that "unclean shutdown" is when I was too eager and clicked "start" too fast. Either way, it happened after the problem started. Favicon.ico seems to be trivial, it has been logged before, when all worked like charmed.

[xipe_totec]

Hah!

Apparently it started working all on its own. Literally. I got away from the computer, left the apartment, got back, localhost is working. Apparently, I have really computer savvy poltergeists.