I really don't understand this one. httpd is dead!
I've tried restarting it ... searched forums... searched google...
At this stage I am at a total loss...
Help!! Please

I still am not 100% sure what caused the problem, but I did manage to resolve it - I rebooted the machine.

I had the same problem last night. The times recorded in the log correspond to when I added a new virtual site.

Here is a portion of the error file:
[Mon Aug 11 20:47:32 2003] [notice] SIGUSR1 received. Doing graceful restart
[Mon Aug 11 20:47:36 2003] [notice] Apache/1.3.20 Sun Cobalt (Unix) mod_ssl/2.8.4 OpenSSL/0.9.6b PHP/4.0.6 mod_auth_pam_external/0.1 FrontPage/4.0.4.3 mod_perl/1.25 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Mon Aug 11 20:49:39 2003] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Mon Aug 11 20:49:42 2003] [crit] (98)Address already in use: make_sock: could not bind to port 80
<<<down time...rebooted to resolve>>>
[Tue Aug 12 18:02:09 2003] [crit] (98)Address already in use: make_sock: could not bind to port 80
[Tue Aug 12 18:14:44 2003] [notice] Apache/1.3.20 Sun Cobalt (Unix) mod_ssl/2.8.4 OpenSSL/0.9.6b PHP/4.0.6 mod_auth_pam_external/0.1 FrontPage/4.0.4.3 mod_perl/1.25 configured -- resuming normal operations

Guess a preventative measure would be to make sure apache restarts ok after adding the site.

kill all(!) apache processes and try to restart again. If you have Cpanel installed, try "/scripts/restartsrv httpd"

Also try to "/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd startssl"

p.s. if you have no time to fix it quickly, reboot the server (last chance)

This should be in the "Technical & Security Issues" section. (MODS messaged)

It usually caused by apache not correctly unbinding the port used.
It can be checked by using "lsof -i :443" for SSL and "lsof -i :80" for normal HTTP.

Reboot will work, or killing apache completely and restarting.

Seems to me you're missing NameVirtualHost tags, or you are trying to get apache to bind on to address that you have not bind onto the NIC.

>> "It usually caused by apache not correctly unbinding the port used"

1) I agree with "[eS]s.h.a.z.y"

2) Sometimes I run "/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop" ~20-30 times to fix the same problem ;)

Here is how you take care of that problem from root type.
killall -9 httpd

then

netstat -anp | grep 80

Look for the process PID that is binding to port 80 and kill it. kill -9 PID. You may need run this command a few times, since other processes will try to latch on to the port as well. Once the above command returns nothing and takes you back to your prompt, then you can restart apache.

You can also do the same when a SSL process binds to port 443.