Post actualizado el día October 24, 2026 by DeiviSanzPlay
XAMPP is the most widely used local development environment for testing sites with Apache, MySQL, and PHP. When something fails, the workflow stops. This guide gathers the most frequent failures and how to fix them without reinstalling everything from scratch.
Apache won’t start: port 80 in use
The usual message is “Problem detected: Port 80 in use by …”. It happens because Skype, IIS, or the World Wide Web Publishing service is already listening on that port. Solutions:
- Close the application blocking the port from Task Manager.
- On Windows, stop the service with net stop W3SVC from a console with administrator permissions.
- Change Apache’s port: edit httpd.conf and replace Listen 80 with Listen 8080. Also update ServerName localhost:8080 and access it as http://localhost:8080.
MySQL/MariaDB shuts down on startup
If the panel shows the module in red, check the mysql_error.log file inside xamppmysqldata. Typical causes:
- Port 3306 in use by another MySQL instance previously installed. Terminate that process or change the port in my.ini.
- Corrupted data files after an abrupt shutdown. Copy the data folder as a backup and run mysqld –innodb-force-recovery=1.
- Damaged InnoDB tables: use mysqlcheck -u root -p –auto-repair –all-databases.
“Access denied for user ‘root'” error
It appears when connecting from phpMyAdmin or a script. Verify that the root password in config.inc.php matches the configured one. If you forgot the password, stop MySQL, open a console as administrator, and run:
mysqld –skip-grant-tables
Then update the password with ALTER USER ‘root’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘new_password’; and restart the service.
phpMyAdmin shows error 1045 or “Cannot start session”
Error 1045 is an authentication error (check credentials). The session warning is usually due to write permissions in xampptmp. Grant full control to your user over that folder and clean up old temporary files.
Blank page or error 500 in PHP
XAMPP hides errors by default. Edit php.ini, enable:
display_errors = On
error_reporting = E_ALL
Restart Apache and reload. This way you’ll see the exact line of the failure instead of a blank screen. Also check error.log in xamppapachelogs.
Cannot access localhost
Check that the Windows firewall isn’t blocking httpd.exe. Add an exception for the executable. If you use an antivirus with a web shield, disable it temporarily to confirm the diagnosis.
Permissions and paths with accents
Installing XAMPP in C:Program Files or in folders with accents causes silent failures in Apache. Move it to C:xampp and avoid spaces or non-ASCII characters in project names.
Preventive recommendations
- Run the control panel as administrator on Windows.
- Close Apache and MySQL before shutting down the computer.
- Export your databases regularly from phpMyAdmin.
- Keep the XAMPP version up to date to avoid incompatibilities with PHP 8.
With these checks, most issues are resolved in minutes and you can get back to your code without losing the existing configuration.
