Catalina localhost ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

apachecatalinahomebrew

I have seen a number of threads that are close but no answer quite hit the mark for my issue. I have a MacOS AMP environment for testing that was setup using homebrew and that had been working swimmingly in Catalina since about January. Then about a month ago, after a "minor" Catalina update (and resulting crash), I got ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED when trying to access http://localhost (and 127.0.0.1 in case you are wondering about the hosts file).

At the time this happened, one thread I read suggested it could have something to do with the AV software. After I uninstalled the AV software, I was once again able to access localhost. Problem solved…or so I thought. Because after the latest Catalina update, I am once again not able to access. Thing is, I never reinstalled the AV program.

The MacOS firewall is off. Apache and PHP error logs are clear.

$ sudo apachectl configtest

Returns

Syntax OK

Any other ideas? Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

The key here is understanding the error message being generated.

When you see a message indicating a connection was refused (ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED) this means that the server actively rejected the connection attempt. This is usually a firewall issue where the firewall rejects the packets.
When yo see a message indicating a time out (ERR_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT) this means that your client waited for a response and nothing happened. This could be due to the service not being up/running, or not installed.
Getting an result back from configtest only checks to see if your httpd.conf file is correctly formatted, not that it's doing what you want it to do. However, your httpd.conf file has little to do with whether your connection is refused or not other than the IP and/or port it listens on.
Finally, http://localhost and 127.0.0.1 (your hosts file) is a DNS related, not firewall. An error here can cause your host to be not found but not rejected.

Things to check

So, unfortunately, nothing you've looked at is related to this. What you have to look for is your firewall. First, disable your firewall and see if it's working. Next, check your httpd.conf file for the Listen directive and make sure that is set properly.

For Best Results

Unless you're hosting a website on a Mac sever (very rarely done), don't install an AMP stack on your Mac. Instead, deploy a small VM running the OS that you'll ultimately deploy to. This way, you can configure the AMP stack exactly for what you'll be using in production and macOS updates won't have any effect on your web server configuration.

Related Solutions

MacOS – Mac apache not working – apachectl configtest errors

Looks like you have an extra conf file in the other directory. This file (+php-osx.conf) is trying to load PHP from /usr/local, rather than the system-supplied PHP. I know my PHP install works and am using the bog-standard Apple supplied Apache and PHP. Call to PHP module should be in the main httpd.conf file - this line is there, but commented out, by default in the Apple-supplied config:

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

And in other there should only be the single php5.conf file, contents:

<IfModule php5_module>
    AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
    AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

    <IfModule dir_module>
        DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
    </IfModule>
</IfModule>

The Apple-provided Apache2 should include the default config files in /etc/apache2, labeled with a suffix such as .original, .pre-update, or ~previous. Same goes for the conf files in subdirectories.

MacOS – Sierra – Apache localhost user level and phpMyAdmin

The "Forbidden" (error 403) error message is something that's generated by the Apache web server

What you need to check in your httpd.conf (or related files) that:

Your global Directory has Options -Indexes (this prevents the server from showing an index of the directory and file structure in the absence of an index.htm or index.html file. Having this option set and no index.htm file will cause this 403 message to be generated.
You have the line DirectoryIndex index.html index.php specified. This will ensure it automatically opens either file name upon entering the directory. You also want to make sure you have an index.html or an index.php file in the directory.

If you want to test out your PHP installation, there's a small piece of code you can put into an index.php file (you can name it anything you want, but it must end with .php).

<?php  
   phpinfo(); 
?>

When you point your browser to localhost you should now see (your settings will vary of course):

phpMyAdmin

As for phpMyAdmin, you can put this anywhere. You can put it in your users directory (not recommended if you have multiple users that need to use it) or your can create a port based virtual host so that it will be available only if someone knows which port it's listening on. Have a look at the Apache documentation to see examples and explanations.

Also, you might want to have a look at Adminer instead of phpMyAdmin. I have found it much easier to deploy and much more robust.