To setup my new WordPress installation I had to create a new database in Plesk. I wasn’t there for a loooooong time and I thought while I’m there I could upgrade Plesk to a current version, it was always easy in the last years.
I’ve tried jumping directly from 8.4 to 9.5 using the Plesk Panel. Result: License error, the license can not be upgraded.
Because I wanted quick results and not waste much time on Plesk I decided to upgrade to 8.6 only, not caring about that 9.x release.
The Update from 8.4 to 8.6 worked, well, at least it says so.
What I was left with was a strange error message:
Operation start with the VPS(s) service “psa” is finished with errors: #703 Can not start/stop/restart service: service “psa” status is not “running” after command “start”.
What now? I’ve started wandering around the internet reading all posts with #703 errors (aka googlin and there were just ~10 ;) and found no real help.
Starting the psa service on the shell looked fine, the logfiles had no obvious error message but Plesk just stopped working.
I didn’t want to stay on the problem for long so I decided to re-install the whole thing using the “repair” options of Plesk.
I started the Plesk Backup (the last one was 2 years old) and also started to download all data via Transmit.
About 2 hours and 4GB later the backup was done and about 20% of my data downloaded. Why are Plesk Backups so slow?
Well, the re-install was finished in about 15 minutes, finally leaving me with the very same message:
Operation start with the VPS(s) service “psa” is finished with errors: #703 Can not start/stop/restart service: service “psa” status is not “running” after command “start”.
At this point I just wanted to get it done and went to the support center of my provider. Looking forward to post a support (free) request, it wasn’t my fault, I just pushed the buttons that were already there! ;-) (otherwise I the paid support jumps in).
The support request was written and the complete form filled out, when I started thinking about maybe downgrading my VPS because the current resources are no longer needed. So I opened a new tab and not only found out that there was a downgrade option but that the “downgrade” will also save me half the money by adding more resources.
Host Europe seems to have changed their packages in the last years, maybe I should have read their newsletters?
My old VPS was a “VPS Linux XL 2.0″ with 512MB RAM and 1.5TB Traffic at €19,99.
The new (and smallest) VPS is a “VPS Linux L 4.0″ with 1GB RAM and 5TB Traffic at €12,99.
Not much to think about, isn’t it? Ordered it right away changing my current VPS plan.
Deleted about 2GB of data on my VPS and started the downloaded again, this time with scp on the Terminal.
I wanted to continue with the setup the next day, it was 1am, I should get some sleep. But no, the new VPS was ready in less than 30 minutes – that was quick! – couldn’t stop now. My scp backup was also nearly finished, got about 2GB downloaded.
So I repeated my previous mistake: I upgraded the pre-installed Plesk 9.5 with the included updater to 9.5.2
… leaving Plesk again unusable, this time because of a License that was invalid. This seems so ridiculous. Walking straight to the support center, finding out that Licenses should be upgradeable and that I need to write an email if I ran into these problems. Parallel I was hitting that strange “Retrieve Key” button in Plesk so often (and receiving error message via email), that my spam filter must have detected an attack :)
Finally I tried: Logout – Login … whew! It worked!
Why does everything need to be so complicated in the virtual enviroment? Btw. Plesk still looks so cheap imitating every windows skin since windows 3.1 not having somehing of their own. But it does its job.
Even the background image is the same:
