Question Server needs recovery - how to do? what has happened?

[Jan]

Hi,

I'm struggling to recover a plesk-server that has been running for a while. I have no explanation for this; I don't recall doing relevant configuration changes.
Seemingly this error-state was triggered by configuring nginx to host an additional webpage on the command-line, i.e. creating a new configuration.
However, this is apparently not the cause of the error. From all plausible reasons, a failed upgrade appears to be the most relastic reason. Still, I'm struggling to understand what had happened.

The server is running Debian 12 / Bookworm an Plesk 18.0.

I struggle to describe the actual error, intuitively, I'd describe this error as "plesk is installed only halfway" but this contradict plesk running for years.

Let me try to describe the current state

1. There is no plesk binary on the system - no idea, why.
2. When I lunch the plesk installer, it tries to prepare my system for installation but fails:

Preparing Your System for Product Installation
===============================================================================

There are 45 packages required for the product to function properly which
were not found in your system.

There are 54 packages that need to be upgraded
in order to install the product.


Available actions:
(F) Go forward
(B) Go back
(Q) Cancel installation
(S) Show the list of packages

Select an action [F/b/q/s]: f
Installing packages
Check the error reason (see log file: /var/log/plesk/install/plesk_18.0.71_installation.log), fix and try again
Check the error reason (see log file: /var/log/plesk/install/plesk_18.0.71_installation.log), fix and try again
awk: cmd. line:1: $1 == "
awk: cmd. line:1:       ^ unterminated string
===> Cumulative Plesk database upgrade (revertable stage) has been started.

I don't understand what makes awk failing, here.

Looking at /var/log/plesk/install/plesk_18.0.71_installation.log it says:

**** Product prep-install started.
Create user 'psaadm' and group 'psaadm'
 Group 'psaadm' already exists
 Checking for the user 'psaadm'...
 User 'psaadm' already exists
Create group 'swkey-data'
 Group 'swkey-data' already exists
 Trying to add supplementary group 'swkey-data' for user 'psaadm'...  already there
Create group 'psaserv'
 Group 'psaserv' already exists
 Trying to add supplementary group 'psaserv' for user 'psaadm'...  already there
Create group 'psacln'
 Group 'psacln' already exists
 Trying to got legacy variables... done
 Trying to save legacy variables... done
 Checking that /opt/psa/bin/chrootsh registered as login shell...

===> Performing safe prep-install database actions


===> Upgrading database

 Trying to start service mariadb... active
done
 Trying to establish test connection... connected
done
 Trying to find Plesk database psa... not found
ERROR 1049 (42000): Unknown database 'psa'
ERROR 1049 (42000): Unknown database 'psa'


ERROR while trying to run the following SQL query: SELECT val FROM misc WHERE param = 'aps_database'

 Trying to backup MySQL database... done
 MySQL databases are dumped to /var/lib/psa/dumps/mysql.preupgrade.18.0.71-18.0.71.20250804-185433.dump.gz
ERROR 1049 (42000): Unknown database 'psa'
ERROR 1049 (42000): Unknown database 'psa'


ERROR while trying to run the following SQL query: SELECT val FROM misc WHERE param = 'aps_database'

===> Cumulative Plesk database upgrade (revertable stage) has been started.
ERROR 1049 (42000): Unknown database 'psa'
ERROR 1049 (42000): Unknown database 'psa'


ERROR while trying to run the following SQL query: SHOW TABLES LIKE 'misc'


===> Restoring database from backup /var/lib/psa/dumps/mysql.preupgrade.18.0.71-18.0.71.20250804-185433.dump.gz


**** Product prep-install for BASE failed.

*****  problem report *****
ERROR while trying to run the following SQL query: SELECT val FROM misc WHERE param = 'aps_database'
*****  problem report *****
ERROR while trying to run the following SQL query: SELECT val FROM misc WHERE param = 'aps_database'
*****  problem report *****
ERROR while trying to run the following SQL query: SHOW TABLES LIKE 'misc'
STOP Bootstrapper 18.0.71 prep-install for BASE AT Mon Aug  4 18:54:40 UTC 2025

I don't see why the database could be missing, because I didn't do anything to it.
For me, it makes no sense the installer fails upgrading the database. I'd expect the installer to create a database if it is not there.

Recovery from backups?

On obvious way to recover there server is to restore some backups. However, I struggle to see what file to restore. There are 1807 files at /var/lib/psa/dumps

root@plesk:/var/lib/psa/dumps# find . | wc -l
1807

There appears to be no single "big file, it's all" kind of file.

Notably, there are mysql-backups containing data from the psa database, which does not exist on the mysql-server anymore.

So, how to restore this server? I'm a bit clueless. What might have happened?

Thanks, Jan

 

[Jan]

Looks like I got the wrong group, 18.0 appears to be Obsidian, but I don't see how to move the thread.

 

[Jan]

Fooling around I restored the psa-database from an SQL-dump in /var/lib/psa/dumps, installed the packages using the installer (was fine, this time) and executed plesk repair, which found some inconsistencies in the database.

I managed to start access the webserver on 443/tcp. However, when trying to access the panel on 8443/tcp, plesk writes to the browser:

Warning:  Unknown: Failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0

Fatal error:  Failed opening required 'auth.php' (include_path='.:') in Unknown on line 0

This continues to be quite odd. If the installer and the repair-util did there job - why is there auth.php missing?