HTTPD Fakename?

[Rick L.]

I have a problem for months now with Apache on one of my FreeBSD servers, maybe someone here one the forum can help me with it.

Sometimes, when Apache will restart at midnight, it won't start anymore. I can find an error in the logfiles like:

Address already in use: make_sock: could not bind to port 80.
shutdown

When I watch the processes, I find the following entries:

apache 13805 0.0 0.1 2028 944 ?? Ss 3:43PM 0:00.37 ./httpd
apache 13885 0.0 0.1 2028 944 ?? S 3:45PM 0:00.25 ./httpd

while all other Apache processer are like:

apache 29301 0.0 1.6 23252 17048 ?? I 10:48PM 0:00.03 /usr/sbin/httpd -DHAVE_PHP4 -DHAVE_FRONTPAGE -DHAVE_PERL
root 81064 0.0 1.6 22924 16544 ?? Ss 12:33AM 0:04.46 /usr/sbin/httpd -DHAVE_PHP4 -DHAVE_FRONTPAGE -DHAVE_PERL
root 81070 0.0 1.5 22160 15812 ?? I 12:33AM 0:00.00 /usr/sbin/httpd -DHAVE_PHP4 -DHAVE_FRONTPAGE -DHAVE_PERL
apache 87200 0.0 0.3 3544 2624 ?? S 17Jan07 4:34.21 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd

When I kill those processes, Apache can restart without any problem. But this problem will cause a downtime for some hours!

Today I searched in the error_log of Apache and found the following entry:

==> Fakename: ./httpd PidNum: 13804

I found it at the time where the process started, but in the log there is no time given.

I tried many things to solve this problem, but nothing worked. For example I tried to change the boot script of Apache following the instructions of http://help.directadmin.com/item.php?id=31.

Does anybody know what I can do to solve this?

Thanks a lot in advance!!

Rick