Apache shutdown unexpectedly after documentroot change in httpd.conf

Question

I'm currently following this toturial to try to get use a folder in dropbox as my htdocs folder. When I change these lines:

DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs"
<Directory "C:/xampp/htdocs">

to

DocumentRoot "C:/Users/Håvard/Dropbox/web"
<Directory "C:/Users/Håvard/Dropbox/web">

I get the following error:

19:39:52  [Apache]  Error: Apache shutdown unexpectedly.
19:39:52  [Apache]  This may be due to a blocked port, missing dependencies, 
19:39:52  [Apache]  improper privileges, a crash, or a shutdown by another method.
19:39:52  [Apache]  Press the Logs button to view error logs and check
19:39:52  [Apache]  the Windows Event Viewer for more clues
19:39:52  [Apache]  If you need more help, copy and post this
19:39:52  [Apache]  entire log window on the forums

I have gotten this error before due to Skype using the same ports, but this time that's not the case. I do believe it has something to do with the letter "å" in my "Håvard"-username... I've tried changing the path to something without my username and this works..

Does someone know if the letter has anything to do with the shutdown, and if: are there any solution to it?

Answer 1

Right click on your dropbox folder and choose properties. Then choose the tab security (Sikkerhet in Norwegian). Click on your username. There you can see if your user has read-write permission.

Answer 2

I found a solution to the problem. It was the encoding of the httpd.conf file. Here's what I did (I guess there's several ways to do this):

1. Open httpd.conf in Notepad++
2. Change Notepad++ settings in the section 'New Document' to UTF-8
3. Create new document
4. Copy and paste everything from httpd.conf to the new docuement
5. Save and overwrite as httpd.conf

This answers my question, but it didn't solve my overall issue of the norwegian letter causing problems with my xampp installation. Here's the next problem I faced.