[users@httpd] Apache hangs on startup without error messages - doesn't spawn children

[Patrick Fitzsimmons <pa...@gmail.com>]

Here's a doozy of a problem has made me bleary eyed with lack of sleep.
 I can deal with errors, but not when there are no error messages.
Hopefully someone out there has experienced something like this problem
before.

I have been running an Apache 2 server for several months on a Linux
Fedora Core 2 Virtual Private Server.  The server has guaranteed 256 MB
of RAM. The Apache 2 is used for development purposes only.  The Apache
is configured with mod_python and with subversion/webdav.

Earlier today I try to access the web site and my browser hangs.  It
does not say "connection refused", it does not say "connection
timeout," it hangs for as long as I let it, even as long as a half an
hour if I don't hit the stop button.

When I do apachectl -k stop, it says, "httpd (no pid file) not
running."  But the process list shows that it's still running.  I kill
the process and the browser finally responds "connection closed."   I
start the Apache again, try and connect, and the browser hangs once
again.  I try cleaning out the PID files, rebooting the server, and
checking all the access and error log, but to no avail.

Everything else on the VPS works fine.  I have a version of Apache1.3
running fine.  SSH, the FTP server, and MySQL are all working too.  My
VPS power panel shows that system resources are well below critical
levels.

I get so frustrated I install a clean version of Apache, in a separate
folder, running on a separate port.  But the exact same problem
happens!  Then I try switching to a different server that I run, and do
the exact same Apache installation - and it works!

So for some reason Apache2 all of a sudden just stopped deciding to run
on this one server, and I cannot do anything to get it back, not even
rebooting.

On the server where Apache works, after I start it and I run ps -Af I
get:

root     27642     1  0 15:27 ?        00:00:00
/usr/local/apache2/bin/httpd -k start
nobody   27643 27642  0 15:27 ?        00:00:00
/usr/local/apache2/bin/httpd -k start
nobody   27644 27642  0 15:27 ?        00:00:00
/usr/local/apache2/bin/httpd -k start
nobody   27645 27642  0 15:27 ?        00:00:00
/usr/local/apache2/bin/httpd -k start
nobody   27646 27642  0 15:27 ?        00:00:00
/usr/local/apache2/bin/httpd -k start

But on the server where it doesn't work I just get this:
root     20352     1  0 15:48 ?        00:00:00
/usr/local/apache3/bin/httpd -k start

So I have decided that the problem is that Apache is not spawning child
processes.
The browser makes a socket connection to the server, but Apache has no
child process to pass the connection off to, so the browser just waits
forever to get a response back.

The question is, how in the world do I fix this?  Why did it happen all
of a sudden out of nowhere?

Halp appreciated!

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