Nginx failed to start on Plesk server: (99: Cannot assign requested address)

Symptoms

• All websites opened the Web Server's Default Page instead of content

• It is not possible to access webmail of all websites and some websites, the attempt will fail with an 404 error:

  CONFIG_TEXT: The requested url /login.php was not found on this server

• Unable to start/enable Nginx:

  CONFIG_TEXT: [emerg] 1618#0: bind() to 203.0.113.2:80 failed (99: Cannot assign requested address)

• There are configuration files which contain the IP address from the error:

  # grep -ir '203.0.113.2' /etc/nginx/*
  /etc/nginx/plesk.conf.d/webmails/example.com_webmail.conf: listen 203.0.113.2:443 ssl;
  /etc/nginx/plesk.conf.d/webmails/example.com_webmail.conf: proxy_pass https://203.0.113.2:7081;
  /etc/nginx/plesk.conf.d/webmails/example.com_webmail.conf: listen 203.0.113.2:80;
  /etc/nginx/plesk.conf.d/webmails/example.com_webmail.conf: proxy_pass http://203.0.113.2:7080;

  # grep -r 203.0.113.2 /var/www/vhosts/system/*/conf/*.conf

• Domain example.com doesn't exist on the server:

  # plesk repair web example.com
  Repairing web server configuration ..................................
  [ERROR] The domain example.com was not found.

Cause

Incorrect configuration files left after removing a domain.

Resolution

1. Connect to the server via SSH

2. Remove the file mentioned in the error, as an example: /etc/nginx/plesk.conf.d/webmails/example.com_webmail.conf

   # rm /etc/nginx/plesk.conf.d/webmails/example.com_webmail.conf

3. Continue operations with the nginx service:

   If the service did not start:

   # service nginx restart

   If it was not possible to enable it:

   # plesk sbin nginxmng -e