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PHP pages on domains in Plesk are downloaded instead of being opened

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Anastasia Zyrianova
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Plesk for Windows Plesk for Linux kb: technical ABT: Group B

Applicable to:

  • Plesk
  • Plesk for Linux
  • Plesk for Windows

Symptoms

  • WordPress admin dashboard can not be opened for a Plesk domain. The wp-login.php file is being downloaded instead of opening.

  • Opening website leads to the index.php being downloaded instead.

Cause

PHP support is disabled for the example.com domain in Domains > example.com > PHP Settings.

Resolution

Enable the PHP Support for the example.com website in one of the following ways:

via Plesk Graphical Interface

  1. Log into Plesk.

  2. Navigate to Domains > example.com > PHP Settings.

  3. Select the PHP Support checkbox and press the OK button:

via Command Line Interface (CLI)

  1. Connect to the server via SSH or RDP.

  2. For Plesk for Windows, additionally start the Command Prompt.

  3. Execute the following command:

    Note: change the "example.com" domain in the command below to the correct one

    # plesk bin subscription -u example.com -php true

Comments

7 comments

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    Patrick Hofmann

    I have the same problem from time to time, its working normally for weeks, and suddenly a php FIle is downloaded instead of showing the website... Restarting Apache normally helps, but its disturbing... could there be another cause? I suspect something cache related. When it happens it happens on several sites, all WordPress.

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    Jan Bludau

    I've updated to Plesk 18.0.30

    i have the same problem with downloading the PHP Files which is really a security risk!!!

    PHP was enabled PHP-FastCGI switched to PHP-FPM no success.

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    Ivan Postnikov

    Hello Patrick Hofmann 

    Maybe this happens during high load. There's a possibility that solution from this article would help: https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/214528405

     

    Jan Bludau

    Try this article: https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002684014

     

    Patrick and Jan, in case these solutions won't help, submit support requests to Plesk or our partner depending on where the license was purchased. 

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    Patrick Hofmann (Edited )

    Well for me the files are empty, so at least its not a securety risk... 

    I will take a look at the max children settings, it sounds somewhat plausible, espevcially as it is gone after a restart of apache. However i did not see this message in the logfiles.....

    Thanks for pointing this out!

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    Michael Hall

    I'm having the same issue with one domain we are hosting. It's downloading an empty file with no extension. I've rebooted, change handlers, all components are updated. Is there any solution that works? 

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    Anton Maslov

    Hello Michael Hall I see you already tried all basic things we might suggest, hence please create a request to support to check the issue: https://bit.ly/32irmsk

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    Patrick Hofmann

    Another Update from my side: Currently i am doing support for 4 Plesk servers and another server started showing this behavior "Instead of showing a webpage downloading a file with is called "Download". The solution was to disable the nginx Cache for this site, now it works. Neither a service nor a server restart helped... So it seems there is something funny going on with the nginx caching. Since i disabled it it works like intended again. 

     

    Just thought i let you know :)

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