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VPS running Ubuntu 18.04 on Digital Ocean. On reboot I cannot access my wordpress website. However, I have SSH access. After beating my head on this I suspected that certificates were somehow involved since my browser was indicating that site was not secure. I then did a

sudo letsencrypt-auto renew

It came out stating that renewal not needed as certificates still valid. However, this fixed the problem. My question is, why is this happening? Is there some setting that I need to avoid this strange behavior? Thanks

Michael Hampton
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spinozarabel
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    Define `cannot access`. What is the exact error message? – Gerald Schneider Aug 27 '19 at 07:09
  • your web server is not starting automatically – vx3r Aug 27 '19 at 07:11
  • @GeraldSchneider, when I type in the website address in the browser there is no response, Error message is that server is taking too long to respond. Apache and mysql services were checked and were fine. – spinozarabel Aug 27 '19 at 07:14
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    That doesn't make much sense. A timeout usually points toward a firewall issue. You are not showing the complete picture here. – Gerald Schneider Aug 27 '19 at 07:15
  • I agree it doesn't make sense. As to firewall I gently disagree. There were no changes and it worked before and also after I executed the letsencrypt-auto command. I wish I knew what was going on. – spinozarabel Aug 27 '19 at 07:23
  • Please show some diagnostics. 1) Prove to us that the web server is running ("ps -ef | grep http" or similar) 2) Test ping / curl from the instance to itself and from your PC to your instance. – Tim Aug 27 '19 at 08:12
  • ps -ef | grep http 4281 2133 0 14:10 pts/0 00:00:00 grep --color=auto http ps -ef | grep https 4283 2133 0 14:10 pts/0 00:00:00 grep --color=auto https. As I mentioned the website displays correctly now so obviously the webserver and mysql server are working fine amongst other things. Ping test from instance to website: 5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4003ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.453/0.783/1.643/0.436 ms – spinozarabel Aug 27 '19 at 08:42
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    If you aren't actually having a problem, it will be very difficult to find the problem you aren't having. You should review your logs carefully, or try to reproduce the problem. – Michael Hampton Aug 27 '19 at 08:54
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    @spinozarabel I know it's not immediately clear, but the format of this platform is that you edit the question with the information asked for in the comments. It's not a forum-thread. So, can you put the `ps` and `curl` output there? – Halfgaar Aug 27 '19 at 08:58
  • I apologize for being a noob and I appear to be wasting your time, I agree if not immediately obvious it is pointless to look for a solution of a transient natured problem. Thanks anyway for your help so far. – spinozarabel Aug 27 '19 at 09:02
  • In you're question, you say your browser is indicating it's not secure, then in the comments you're saying it times out. That's somewhat incompatible and it'd be nice if you had a diagnostic with some amount of consistent information, can you `ss` if you have timeouts, `openssl s_client` if you have insecure connection issues or any appropriate information relevant to the issues you're facing. – Ginnungagap Aug 27 '19 at 19:10
  • I might have found the problem although I am unsure why it was one. I am using CSF as firewall and had CC_ALLOW_FILTER set to countries of interest to block usual suspects. When I removed this country filtering the problem disappeared. Unsure why this was a problem only at reboot and not while operating if it did recover.My server indicates secure in Chrome browser. – spinozarabel Sep 03 '19 at 09:50

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