Fix WampServer offline issue

WampServer is a web server on Windows which provides easy to use features for PHP developers. You can easily setup a web server by installing WampSserver without much hard to understand configurations. After installing it and with a simple configuration, you just need to double click it and start all services and your server is gonna up. 

If the server starts up normally, you will see a green icon which indicates the working status at the taskbar. But if you don't see the green icon shown up, instead you see an orange icon, you are encountering a problem that the server cannot be started normally.

The reasons for seeing this can be vast. For example, if some other services have taken the port(80) of the Apache server, or there are some misconfiguration of the httpd.conf file, or some necessary directories are missing. There are tons of suggestions on the web which show how to fix this issue. Some issues are well known such as if you have a Skype running and it takes the port 80. To debug the issue and find the root cause, actually we can just follow below steps:

1. Click Start -> Run -> Type cmd.exe
2. Go to the directory where your Apache server is installed. usually for WAMP, it's at some place like : C:\wamp\bin\apache\apache2.4.9\bin
3. Type "httpd -e debug", this will start the Apache service at debug mode. You will see logs printed while the server is starting. If there is issue with start, the error message will be printed. You can further debug it based on the error message. The message will gives where the exact problem is.

For example, below is one example where I fixed my WampServer issue with the above steps, when I type "httpd -e debug,

C:\wamp\bin\apache\apache2.4.9\bin>httpd -e debug
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.478458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e access_compat_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_access_compat.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.479458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e actions_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_actions.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.480458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e alias_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_alias.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.480458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e allowmethods_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_allowmethods.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.481458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e asis_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_asis.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.482458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e auth_basic_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_auth_basic.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.483458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e authn_core_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_authn_core.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.484458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e authn_file_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_authn_file.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.485458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e authz_core_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_authz_core.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.486458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e authz_groupfile_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_authz_groupfile.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.487458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e authz_host_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_authz_host.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.488458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e authz_user_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_authz_user.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.489458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e autoindex_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_autoindex.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.489458 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e cache_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_cache.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.491459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e cache_disk_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_cache_disk.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.493459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e cgi_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_cgi.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.494459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e deflate_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_deflate.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.495459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e dir_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_dir.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.497459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e env_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_env.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.498459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e file_cache_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_file_cache.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.499459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e include_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_include.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.500459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e isapi_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_isapi.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.501459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e log_config_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_log_config.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.501459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e mime_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_mime.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.502459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e negotiation_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_negotiation.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.504459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e rewrite_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_rewrite.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.506459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e setenvif_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_setenvif.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.507459 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e vhost_alias_module from C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/modules/mod_vhost_alias.so
[Sun Sep 13 14:03:42.511460 2015] [so:debug] [pid 1028:tid 188] mod_so.c(266): AH01575: loaded modul
e php5_module from C:/wamp/bin/php/php5.5.12/php5apache2_4.dll
AH00526: Syntax error on line 230 of C:/wamp/bin/apache/apache2.4.9/conf/httpd.conf:
DocumentRoot must be a directory

At the bottom of the output, it shows that the DocumentRoot must be a directory. Then I go into the httpd.conf and find that DocumentRoot points to c:/wamp/www. When I navigate to c:/wamp, I find that my www folder is mistakenly deleted. So I recreated this folder and then restarted the server, the WampServer finally starts and runs as a charm.

Hope this tip helps.