If you are running XAMPP on Mac and can’t start apache, you are likely getting an unhelpful error message. If the message is blank, it could be because one of your local websites doesn’t have a logs folder; it could also be a hostname issue. If you are getting an error regarding ulimit and have tried the other fix on the web (commenting out the three lines related to ulimit in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/apachectl) then your problem is likely related to hostname binding.

Check your error log at:

tail -f /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/logs/error_log

Start apache and see if you get an error regarding nodename or hostname

In terminal again, run the following command:

ping $(hostname)

If you get no response, then your hostname is not bound to your IP address, and apache doesn’t like that. Here is how you fix it:

echo "127.0.0.1 " $(hostname) | pbcopy

Open your /etc/hosts file and paste your clipboard contents in, restart apache and it should be working fine.