Unable to start nginx service on a Plesk server: nginx.service: start operation

[Suhitha]

Question: Unable to start nginx service on a Plesk server: nginx.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.


Applicable to:

• Plesk for Linux

Symptoms

• nginx service fails to start with the following error messages:

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systemd[1]: nginx.service start-pre operation timed out. Terminating.
systemd[1]: Failed to start Startup script for nginx service.
systemd[1]: Unit nginx.service entered failed state.
systemd[1]: nginx.service failed.

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systemd[1]: nginx.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
systemd[1]: nginx.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
systemd[1]: Failed to start Startup script for nginx service.
nginx[14602]: nginx: [warn] "ssl_stapling" ignored, host not found in OCSP responder "r3.o.lencr.org" in the certificate "/usr/local/psa/var/certificates/scfp55dcd"


• nginx service may be in activating state:

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# service nginx status | grep Active
Active: activating (start-pre) since Mon 2025-01-01 10:00:00 +08; 35s ago



• nginx configuration check shows warnings about unreachable OCSP responder:

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[warn] 25236#0: "ssl_stapling" ignored, host not found in OCSP responder "r3.o.lencr.org" in the certificate "/usr/local/psa/var/certificates/scfTdclNf"


• External hosts, like Google, are accessible from the server (200 response):

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# curl -I https://www.google.com
HTTP/2 200
...

Cause


The DNS resolver, defined i system configuration, fails to resolve r.o.lencr.org (Let's Encrypt OCSP responder).


Resolution

Apply one of the solutions below:


Solution I: Change DNS resolver in the system

1.Connect to your Plesk server via SSH.

2.Open the file /etc/resolv.conf in a text editor. In this example, we are using the vi editor:

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# vi /etc/resolv.conf

3.Comment out the invalid resolver by placing a # (hash) character at the beginning of the line:

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# vnameserver 203.0.113.2
4.Add a different DNS resolver, for example Cloudflare DNS:

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nameserver 1.1.1.1
5.Save the change and close the file.

Note: /etc/resolv.conf can be overwritten on Ubuntu 18.04 and higher by netplan and systemd-resolved.services. To learn more, see this KB article.

6.Restart nginx service:

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# systemctl restart nginx
Note: If the above solution does not help, contact your service provider in order to check the network setup.



Solution II: Disable OSCP check

1.Connect to your Plesk server via SSH.

2.Disable OCSP check for all domains:

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# for file in $(grep -iRl 'ssl_stapling' /var/www/vhosts/system/*/conf/*.conf); do sed -i '/ssl_stapling/ s/^/#/' "$file"; done
Note: The long execution of the OCSP queries is likely a temporary issue. The OCSP support can be enabled anew with the following command:

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# for file in $(grep -iRl 'ssl_stapling' /var/www/vhosts/system/*/conf/*.conf); do sed -i 's/^*ssl_stapling/ ssl_stapling/' "$file"; done