Unable to access Plesk: fork/exec /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/php: exec format error

Symptoms

• Plesk is inaccessible with the following error:

  ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT 

• Both sw-engine and sw-cp-server services are masked:

  # systemctl list-unit-files --type=service | grep sw
  sw-cp-server.service masked
  sw-engine.service masked

• Plesk commands fail:

  # plesk login
  fork/exec /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/php: exec format error

• Plesk update fails with the following error:

  /usr/local/psa/bin/extension: line 2: ?php: No such file or directory
  /usr/local/psa/bin/extension: line 3: syntax error near unexpected token "The file {$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']} is part of Plesk distribution. It cannot be run outside of Plesk environment.n"' /usr/local/psa/bin/extension: line 3: die("The file {$_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']} is part of Plesk distribution. It cannot be run outside of Plesk environment.n");'

• The following command shows many Plesk files with 0B in size:

  # find /usr/local/psa -type f -size 0 | grep -v modules | grep -v search | grep -v PMM
  usr/local/psa/admin/bin/plesk_agent_manager
  /usr/local/psa/admin/htdocs/domains/databases/phpMyAdmin/vendor/pragmarx/google2fa/tests/.gitkeep
  /usr/local/psa/admin/htdocs/spaw/empty/empty.html
  /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/mchk
  /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/deployer
  /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/backup_encrypt
  /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/backup-archiver
  /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/pmm-ras
  /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/pmmcli
  /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/pmmcli_daemon
  /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/gl_dbcleaner
  ...

Cause

Corrupted Plesk files.

Resolution

1. Connect to the server via SSH;
2. Find the owner of the files with 0B in size:

   # find /usr/local/psa -type f -size 0 -exec rpm -qf {} ; | grep -v search | grep -v PMM | grep -v 'not owned' | uniq
   plesk-core-18.0-2.centos.7+p18.0.25.2+t200325.1928.x86_64
   plesk-service-node-utilities-18.0-2.centos.7+p18.0.25.2+t200325.1928.x86_64

3. Remove them with the following command:

   # rpm -e --nodeps --justdb plesk-core
   # rpm -e --nodeps --justdb plesk-service-node

4. Run Plesk Installer to reinstall them back:

   # plesk installer

5. Restart the psa service:

   # systemctl psa restart