Apache Friends Support Forum

I try to start apache from them xampp control panel. It starts but in five seconds or so it shuts donw by itself and no message appears. I tried the following things:
1- I closed skype.
2- I stopped IIs.
3- I stopped the windows firewall.
4- I ran xampp-portcheck.exe and I checked that all ports were free.

What can I do to start apache. Usually I could do without any problem (once I closed skype and IIs) but now without any explanation I cannot start it.

Thank you very much you all.

Are there any errors reported in the Apache logs or is the folder empty? (/xampp/apache/logs)

Did you install/enable any new PHP modules?

Are there any errors reported in the Windows Event Viewer? (Start > Run > eventvwr)

As I had this problem several times I reinstalled xampp just today with the standard settings. The Windows Event Viewer shows several errors (application folder) with origin crypt32 but I don't know it this has anything to do with the problem.

The following one appears in error.log:

[Tue Jan 17 14:00:31 2012] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Tue Jan 17 14:00:31 2012] [notice] Digest: done
[Tue Jan 17 14:00:34 2012] [notice] Apache/2.2.17 (Win32) mod_ssl/2.2.17 OpenSSL/0.9.8o PHP/5.3.4 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Tue Jan 17 14:00:34 2012] [notice] Server built: Oct 18 2010 01:58:12
[Tue Jan 17 14:00:34 2012] [crit] (22)Invalid argument: Parent: Failed to create the child process.
[Tue Jan 17 14:00:34 2012] [crit] master_main: create child process failed. Exiting.
[Tue Jan 17 14:00:34 2012] [notice] Parent: Forcing termination of child process 36
[Tue Jan 17 15:35:40 2012] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Tue Jan 17 15:35:40 2012] [notice] Digest: done
[Tue Jan 17 15:35:42 2012] [notice] Apache/2.2.17 (Win32) mod_ssl/2.2.17 OpenSSL/0.9.8o PHP/5.3.4 mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.1 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Tue Jan 17 15:35:42 2012] [notice] Server built: Oct 18 2010 01:58:12
[Tue Jan 17 15:35:42 2012] [crit] (22)Invalid argument: Parent: Failed to create the child process.
[Tue Jan 17 15:35:42 2012] [crit] master_main: create child process failed. Exiting.
[Tue Jan 17 15:35:42 2012] [notice] Parent: Forcing termination of child process 36

Thank you hackattack142.

Take a look at this topic for possible issues (its most likely a disguised port issue)

viewtopic.php?p=161769

or Google "XAMPP (22)Invalid argument: Parent: Failed to create the child process."

for a pile more

Did you check port 443??? (https)

good luck

Your Apache log shows version 2.2.17 while your profile states you are using XAMPP 1.7.7 which includes Apache 2.2.21. Do you have multiple apache instances installed or did you try some sort of manual upgrade?