Instance Stuck in PROVISIONING
If your instance shows "Provisioning" for more than 10 minutes:
1.Go to your instance detail page
2.Click the "Retry Provision" button
3.The system will attempt to re-provision on AWS
4.If it still fails, wait for the daily cron job or contact support
Cannot SSH into Server
1.Verify instance status is "Running" in the dashboard
2.Check your IP address hasn't changed (if using IP whitelisting)
3.Verify the key file permissions: chmod 400 key.pem
4.Try verbose SSH: ssh -vvv -i key.pem user@IP
5.Ensure port 22 is open (check instance ports in dashboard)
6.Try the browser SSH link on your instance page
Website Not Accessible
1.Confirm the instance is running (check dashboard status)
2.Verify DNS is pointing to the correct IP: dig yourdomain.com
3.Check if the web server is running:
sudo systemctl status nginx (or apache2)
4.Verify port 80 and 443 are open
5.Check web server logs:
Nginx: sudo tail -50 /var/log/nginx/error.log
Apache: sudo tail -50 /var/log/apache2/error.log
High CPU Usage
1.SSH in and identify the offending process: top or htop
2.Common causes:
•PHP scripts in infinite loops
•MySQL queries without indexes
•Bot traffic / DDoS
•Cron jobs overlapping
3.Quick fixes:
•Kill the process: kill -9 PID
•Optimize database queries
•Install rate limiting (fail2ban / Nginx limit_req)
Out of Disk Space
1.Check usage: df -h
2.Find large files: sudo du -sh /var/* | sort -rh | head
3.Clean up:
•Remove old logs: sudo journalctl --vacuum-size=100M
•Clear package cache: sudo apt clean
•Remove unused packages: sudo apt autoremove
MySQL Won't Start
1.Check error log: sudo tail -50 /var/log/mysql/error.log
2.Common fix — disk full or corrupted files:
sudo systemctl restart mysql
3.If InnoDB recovery is needed:
Add to /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf:
innodb_force_recovery = 1
Restart, export data, then remove the recovery flag.
Email Not Sending from Server
1.Check if port 25/587 is blocked (common on cloud providers)
2.Use an external SMTP service (Gmail, SendGrid, SES) instead
3.Verify SPF and DKIM records in your DNS
Instance in ERROR State
1.Click "Retry Provision" on the instance page
2.If the error persists, the AWS instance may have been terminated
3.Contact support — an admin can investigate the AWS console logs
Performance is Slow
1.Check resources: free -m (memory), df -h (disk), top (CPU)
2.Consider upgrading your plan if resources are consistently maxed
3.Enable caching (Redis, page cache, CDN)
4.Optimize your application (database indexes, code profiling)