WampServer

For all you people that are having trouble starting Apache etc. I had the same problem and after trying everything from right clicking and starting as Admin, giving Norton's the boot, changing ports I eventually I deleted everything DON'T JUST UNINSTALL, delete the actual folder from within windows explorer as well. I then ran regedit and deleted everything to do with Wamp and Mysql and then did a clean install and hey presto it worked.
I think my problems came about because I re-installed over a previous version and it was just not happy and sulked away until I did a clean install...now all is happy and hopefully we will live happily everafter )

that doesnt make sense. if you installed it the first time it should've worked. i don't think it wouldn't work because you didn't UNinstall it right...what happened to the first install?

I have used Wampserver for a very long time and have installed it on many PC's so my installation was definately right. This time however it was onto a laptop that had Nortons as well as Skype on it and so it did not launch correctly. When checking through the forums I noted the various solutions but none of them worked. That is when I "cleaned out" as per my previous post and therafter re-installed and it worked fine.
Whether it makes sense or not I thought I would tell everyone what I did to get it working in the hope it may help some else who is experiencing the same thing as I...........

while i applaud your efforts and good intentions i just wanted to point out that this may confuse people more than help them.
What it sounds like from your initial post is that you simply forgot you installed it and then tried to put another version over it.
As far as other problems, see my post entitled "what am I missing?" in the forum.

incidentally, should there be a WAMP representative reading this it would serve your product well to include a troubleshooting guide in the help section with some of the most common problems that people may come across. It especially would help those who've had no previous experience in such an application.


Thanks

Thanks Garwil,

I tried everything you said:
- uninstalled my wamp
- manually deleted the c:\wamp folder
- went to run>regedit
- search for "wamp" and deleted all entries containing that term
- made sure my Skype was NOT open
- reinstalled WAMP

(just spelling it out clearly for anyone else in the future)

It all worked fine from then on. mpr, I think Garwil's post is valid because I never had Apache or WAMP installed on my computer, but because Skype was open on my first install it screwed the whole thing over. I had to uninstall everything manually (automatic uninstall alone didn't work) to make the WAMP server work.

Thanks again for the tip!

I had that problem too. But actually, it was pretty easy to fix. I justed went to Start->Control Panel->Administration->Logs and chose Program. There I could see that an error occured when apache started. I double-clicked it and was presented with the following:
>>> <Directory "X:/"> path is invalid. .
and another one
>>> Syntax error on line 254 of C:/wamp/Apache2/conf/httpd.conf: .

I found out that it was because I had specified a drive to be my document root. After I corrected it, it worked fine.

Thanks bjso. I just went through your list, did all you mentioned, except that there were 2 entries that I couldn't delete.

Apache still doesn't start. There's also no entry in the log files.

Anyway, I still need Skype, there must be a way to run Apache and Skype at the same time!

Any more hints?

The only way you can run Apache and Skype at the same time is to make Apache listen on a different port. Skype only works on port 80. That is the same port web servers (Apache, IIS, etc) use. I am not sure why the creators of Skype chose to use port 80 for their program, when they have thousands of ports to choose from.

You can make apache listen to a different port by editing the listen directive in the httpd.conf. Other default web server ports are 81 and 8080. You can make Apache listen to port 81, port 8080, or both. Open your httpd.conf and find:
Listen 80

To make Apache listen to port 81, change that line to this:
Listen 81

To make apache listen to port 8080, change it to this:
Listen 8080

To make apache listen both 81 and 8080 use:
Listen 81
Listen 8080

Also take note, since you are not using the default port 80 anymore, you will now have to add the correct port to use to end of the url to access your webpage.

If you changed to port 81, then use:
[localhost]

If you changed to port 8080 then use:
[localhost]

After you have finished editing your httpd.conf file, save it, and restart Apache for the new settings to take effect.



Post Edited (04-24-06 13:25)

CyberSpatium
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WAMP Forum Admin

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CyberSpatium, Thank you, that was the answer I was hoping for.

Meanwhile I managed to start Apache by disabling a number of services (incl. Skype), then I rebooted, then started Wamp. Then I started Skype, and it's running at the same time now!

Inspired by your reply, I checked the Skype options and found that the incoming port can be chosen, at least for incoming connections. (Tools>Options>Connection)