Apache2 won't start after upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - Cannot load /usr/lib/apache2/moduleslibphp8.0.so [closed]

Question

I am a bit stuck as to how to fix this. I did a distro upgrade a server running Apache2.

Since the upgrade it has not worked. I ran a config test and below is the error. I had no issues with my configuration on the previous version of Ubuntu (21.10)

$ apache2ctl configtest
apache2: Syntax error on line 146 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf: Syntax error on line 3 of /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/php8.0.load: Cannot load /usr/lib/apache2/modules/libphp8.0.so into server: /usr/lib/apache2/modules/libphp8.0.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Action 'configtest' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

Any ideas where to begin? I'm still fairly inexperienced when it comes to Apache.

Answer 1

While you've figured this out, others will come (like myself) to see how you did this.

# perhaps you did the following to see what modules were present
> apache2ctl -M

# the result of the above command may have returned an error such as:
apache2:
 Syntax error on line 146 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf:
  Syntax error on line 2 of /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/php8.0.load:
   Cannot load /usr/lib/apache2/modules/libphp8.0.so into server:
    /usr/lib/apache2/modules/libphp8.0.so:
     cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Action '-M' failed.

# so you removed the problematic module that was no longer installed
# by doing the following (as appropriate given the error above)
> sudo a2dismod php8.0

# you needed to restart your server after that
> sudo systemctl restart apache2

# if you tested the server in a browser html should function...
# however you perhaps desired the use of another php module
# and added another one (8.1) that is install by default in Ubuntu 22.04
> sudo a2enmod php8.1

# you restarted apache again and it worked?
> sudo systemctl restart apache2

Perhaps you were using mod_userdir and also needed to update the apache php module configuration file:

/etc/apache2/mods-enabled/php8.1.conf

By commenting out the following lines:

<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
    <Directory /home/*/public_html>
        php_admin_flag engine Off
    </Directory>
</IfModule>

So that they looked like this:

#<IfModule mod_userdir.c>
#    <Directory /home/*/public_html>
#        php_admin_flag engine Off
#    </Directory>
#</IfModule>

# finally you restarted apache2 again:
sudo systemctl restart apache2
# and everything was back to normal?

Did you do something like this?

Answer 2

In my case I upgraded Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04. So the wizard uninstalled the php7.4 modules and installed php8.1 modules instead. After that I tried to restart apache2 but it didn't. I realized that in my /etc/apache2/mods-enabled folder I still had php7.4.conf and php7.4.load and php7.4.load was still pointing to libphp7.4.so.

Remember that mods-enabled folder is generated from mods-available folder so you should never alter mods-enabled folder. Instead, you should disable php7.4 modules:

sudo a2dismod php7.4

and enable php8.1 modules:

sudo a2enmod php8.1

Of course after enabling php8.1 modules you have to restart apache2 service.

sudo systemctl restart apache2