For those of you on a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or dedicated server, you may receive a notice like the one below once in a while.

httpd failed @ Day Mth Date 13:16:26 20XX. A restart was attempted automagically.

Service Check Method: [tcp connect]

Failure Reason: Timeout while trying to get data from service: Died at /usr/local/cpanel/etc./etc/ line 459.

Number of Restart Attempts: 1

Like most server messages the email you get it’s kinda cryptic isn’t it? Good thing you don’t have to decipher what it all means at that point.

What it means is something went wrong and the server has attempted to restart itself. At the time of restart, the server will be down for a few minutes that means your sites will go offline.

Pay close attention to the date and in particular time mentioned in the email then go check your sites. If they are up and running after that time, there’s a good chance the server righted itself and all is good. Do continue checking if the sites are up for the next few hours but other than that.

If you checked and they are down long past the time in the email, there’s a good chance the server cannot reboot itself and you may have received more than one email notice. That is the time to contact your web host, let them know you’ve been getting these emails, copying or attaching a copy of the email with full headers and a little history will help them help you faster. They should be able to take over from there.

This is one reason why it is so important to have your VPS and dedicated service fully managed. We do and won’t order anything less. If you are looking for a VPS or Dedicated server, check out these two companies we use, MomWebs and GoGVO.