Knowledge Base

Various actions fail in Plesk: The prefix ‘/var/www/vhosts/system/example.com’ does not exist or is not a directory, FPM initialization failed

Symptoms

Unable to switch PHP handler for a subscription or create a new domain in Plesk:

Error: phpinimng failed: invoke-rc.d: initscript plesk-phpXX-fpm, action "status" failed. invoke-rc.d: initscript plesk-phpXX-fpm, action "status" failed. Service plesk-phpXX-fpm is down after attempt to start it
The following error occurred when trying to rename the domain via Domains > example.com > Hosting settings:

PLESK_ERROR: Error: phpinimng failed: configuration test '/opt/plesk/php/x.x/sbin/php-fpm --test' failed with code 78, and message: ERROR: [pool example.com] the prefix '/var/www/vhosts/system/example.com' does not exist or is not a directory ERROR: failed to post process the configuration ERROR: FPM initialization failed
The plesk-phpXX-fpm service is down and cannot be started. Error in /var/log/plesk-phpXX-fpm/error.log:

ERROR: [pool example.com] the prefix '/var/www/vhosts/system/example.com' does not exist or is not a directory
ERROR: failed to post process the configuration
ERROR: FPM initialization failed
Site fails to open with 502 Bad Gateway error or 503 Service Unavailable
Migration fails:

ERR [util_exec] proc_close() failed ['/usr/local/psa/admin/bin/phpinimng' '--virtual-host' 'example.com' '--override' '/var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/conf/php.ini' '--type' 'fpm' '--cgi-bin' '/opt/plesk/php/XX/sbin/php-fpm' '--sysuser' 'johndoe' '--service' 'plesk-phpXX-fpm' '--poold' '/opt/plesk/php/XX/etc/php-fpm.d' '--no-reload'] with exit code [1]
An error occurred during domain creation: An error occurred during changing of hosting settings: phpinimng failed: configuration test '/opt/plesk/php/XX/sbin/php-fpm --test' failed with code 78, and message:
ERROR: [pool example.com] the prefix '/var/www/vhosts/system/example.com' does not exist or is not a directory
ERROR: failed to post process the configuration
ERROR: FPM initialization failed
The PHP configuration file for the affected domain is present on the server:

# ls -la /opt/plesk/php/X.X/etc/php-fpm.d/example.com.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1294 May 3 19:54 /opt/plesk/php/X.X/etc/php-fpm.d/example.com.conf

Cause

The domain was removed incompletely.

Resolution

Click on a section to expand

To find and remove redundant files for the affected domain:

Connect to the server via SSH

Note: in case of the migration, connect to the destination server.
Check if the domain web content files and configuration file exist on the server, if the domain is registered in Plesk database:

# ls -al /var/www/vhosts/system/example.com

# httpd -D DUMP_VHOSTS | grep example.com

# plesk db "select * from domains where name like '%example%'"
If domain web content files do not exist on the server and the domain is not registered in Plesk database, remove its configuration file and restart the affected PHP service:

# rm /opt/plesk/php/X.X/etc/php-fpm.d/example.com.conf
# service plesk-phpXX-fpm restart
If the files exist on the server and the domain…