title: Apache child process exited with status 255
body: <p>After lot of searching, trying, fixing, waiting and crying and before I give up, I want to take the last chance here for this bug...</p>
  
  <p>We're running on <em>Microsoft Windows Server 2012, Apache/2.4.6 (Win64) OpenSSL/1.0.1e PHP/5.5.1</em>. </p>
  
  <p>Periodically, at least 5-10 times within 24 hours, Apache crashing and restarting. Mostly twice. Because PHP crashed.</p>
  
  <p>The whole application is PHP, so configuring php as <em>FastCGI</em> won't solve the problem: Apache will not crash but PHP will.</p>
  
  <p>here some more info:</p>
  
  <p><strong>Windows Event Log:</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>Faulting application name: httpd.exe, version: 2.4.6.0, time stamp: 0x51e441d6
  Faulting module name: php5ts.dll, version: 5.5.1.0, time stamp: 0x51e849b0
  Exception code: 0xc0000005
  Fault offset: 0x00000000000572d8
  Faulting process id: 0xac0
  Faulting application start time: 0x01d0a96634f3d129
  Faulting application path: C:\Apache24\bin\httpd.exe
  Faulting module path: C:\PHP\php5ts.dll
  Report Id: 06409cc4-1568-11e5-93ff-d43d7edb03a9
  Faulting package full name:
  Faulting package-relative application ID: 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>Apache Log:</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>[Thu Jun 18 06:13:44.284810 2015] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 2736:tid 392] AH00428: Parent: child process 2752 exited with status 255 -- Restarting.
  [Thu Jun 18 06:13:44.487977 2015] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 2736:tid 392] AH00455: Apache/2.4.6 (Win64) OpenSSL/1.0.1e PHP/5.5.1 configured -- resuming normal operations
  [Thu Jun 18 06:13:44.487977 2015] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 2736:tid 392] AH00456: Apache Lounge VC11 Server built: Jul 15 2013 20:45:22
  [Thu Jun 18 06:13:44.487977 2015] [core:notice] [pid 2736:tid 392] AH00094: Command line: 'c:\\Apache24\\bin\\httpd.exe -d C:/Apache24'
  [Thu Jun 18 06:13:44.487977 2015] [mpm_winnt:notice] [pid 2736:tid 392] AH00418: Parent: Created child process 4408
  </code></pre>
  
  <ul>
  <li>In PHP log nothing special and no pattern before crash.</li>
  <li>Also concurrent connections not affecting the problem - it's happens even when we have very few users.</li>
  <li>MySQL? But no errors pointing to this or I looking in wrong place?</li>
  <li>Windows? How to figure out?</li>
  <li>PHP/Apache configuration? Well, what else.. and why?</li>
  <li>Aliens...</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>The main question is why PHP is crashing?..</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance!</p>