apache not starting and stopping properly

strange problem

[stevenjm]

Hi, i posted a while back with problems on my server with apache. at the time it was running but could not connect and would not recognise localhost (could not connect by typing localhost or 127.0.0.1 in browser) anyway after scratching my head all day and rebooting plenty of times i tried shutting it down via control panel and it took about 7 go's to shut it down, after that when restarted it was working again.

The server is still working but its still having problems shutting down and starting, it takes a few times before it will stop or start sometimes. any ideas? heres the log of the last shutdown and restart and its not showing anything for the 4 or so attempted starts.

[Sat Nov 29 13:18:11 2008] [warn] child process 410 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:11 2008] [warn] child process 414 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:11 2008] [warn] child process 405 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:12 2008] [warn] child process 410 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:12 2008] [warn] child process 414 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:12 2008] [warn] child process 405 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:13 2008] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:21 2008] [notice] LDAP: Built with OpenLDAP LDAP SDK
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:22 2008] [notice] LDAP: SSL support unavailable
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:22 2008] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:22 2008] [notice] Digest: done
[Sat Nov 29 13:18:22 2008] [notice] Apache/2.0.52 (Unix) PHP/4.3.9 DAV/2 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Sat Nov 29 17:29:58 2008] [warn] child process 944 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 17:29:59 2008] [warn] child process 945 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 17:29:59 2008] [warn] child process 946 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 17:29:59 2008] [warn] child process 947 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 17:29:59 2008] [warn] child process 948 still did not exit, sending a SIGTERM
[Sat Nov 29 17:29:59 2008] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Sat Nov 29 17:33:46 2008] [notice] LDAP: Built with OpenLDAP LDAP SDK
[Sat Nov 29 17:33:46 2008] [notice] LDAP: SSL support unavailable
[Sat Nov 29 17:33:46 2008] [notice] Digest: generating secret for digest authentication ...
[Sat Nov 29 17:33:46 2008] [notice] Digest: done
[Sat Nov 29 17:33:46 2008] [notice] Apache/2.0.52 (Unix) PHP/4.3.9 DAV/2 configured -- resuming normal operations

its behaving like an old unreliable car not a server.

[coopster]

Have you considered a fresh install? Try using the default .conf files as well. Start up and check your error logs. If all is well, start making your mods, maybe even one at a time if necessary, restart the server and check your logs again.