"localhost" is not setup to establish a connection on port..

[Sully725]

Hello everyone,

I have been using XAMPP for about a year now to develop a Joomla site. I have not had any problems, until today. It has been great. However, today, when I try to go to localhost using my browser, I get the following error:

"localhost" is not set up to establish a connection on port "World Wide Web service (HTTP)" with this computer.

This is a windows Vista machine. I am using XAMPP version 2.5. Nothing has changed (to my knowledge) on this computer since the last time I used localhost a couple of days ago.

Can anyone give me some detailed advice on what could be the problem and how to fix it?

Thanks, in advance, for your help,
Sully

[Izzy]

It would appear that you may have a Trojan creep into your system.

The Trojan may have added additional 127.0.0.1 entries to your C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\Hosts file that need to be removed so only
127.0.0.1 localhost
is the first entry in this file.

You can edit this file by dragging the file into your open text editor.

After editing save the file and try again to access localhost.

But this fix will not remove the Trojan so that is a priority and must be done before editing the Hosts file or the Trojan will simply do it's dirty deed once again.


There is a solution here if that is so:
Experts Exchange

The above fix from these Google search results for your error message plus there may be more solutions if you do not have a Trojan.

[Sully725]

Hi Izzy,

Thanks for the help, but I'm having trouble with this. I tried to edit the hosts file but I can only open it as read only so I can't save the changes. Can't seem to open it any other way. I opened it with MS Word. Any thoughts about how I can get around this?

Thanks again,
Sully

[Izzy]

Make sure UAC is disabled and you are logged in as an administrator in Vista.

Or run Notepad as Administrator.

Find the shortcut for Notepad in your Programs list, right-click on it and choose "run as Administrator".

Now do File>Open to get the Hosts file. Make your changes and you should be able to save it.


BTW never use MS Word to edit files in XAMPP always use a text editor like Notepad and always save as text not with any other encoding like utf-8 for example.

[Sully725]

Hi Izzy,

Great. That worked perfectly. Thanks for all your help.

Sully

[varmt]

Hi Izzy & everyone,

i am experiencing same problem and i have tried ur advised solution but still same error. I have removed this line 127.0.0.1 localhost infact.
there is other line
::1 localhost
should this stay or what. i am confused. please advise.

Regards,
Varmt