The Plesk self-repair functionality enables you to automatically diagnose and resolve issues with Plesk and Plesk services. If you encounter an issue with one of the Plesk services (for example, if mail is not being sent or delivered, or a website fails to open, and so on), or with Plesk itself (for example, if error messages are being displayed in the Plesk interface, or if Plesk pages fail to load), you can use the Plesk repair utility to attempt to resolve it. The utility can be used to check and repair individual aspects of Plesk (such as the mail service, or the Plesk database), or all the aspects at once.

To run the Plesk repair utility, log in to the server via SSH (if you are using Plesk for Linux), or RDP (if you are using Plesk for Windows), and run the plesk repair command, specifying the desired aspect and options:

plesk repair ASPECT [OPTION]

The Plesk repair utility can be run in one of the three modes:

  • Interactive mode. Whenever the utility detects an issue or is about to reconfigure a service, it informs you and prompts you for the permission to attempt to resolve the issue or reconfigure the service. By default, the repair utility runs in the interactive mode. Note that certain operations (such as resolving issues caused by missing PHP handlers) require you to choose from a list of available options, as opposed to simply answering “yes” or “no”, and for that reason can only be performed in the interactive mode. Such operations are marked accordingly in the descriptions of the corresponding aspects.
  • Diagnostic mode. The utility informs you about any detected issues, but does not resolve them. To run the repair utility in the diagnostic mode, use the plesk repair command with the -n option.
  • Repair mode. The utility attempts to resolve any issues it detects. It also reconfigures certain services, even if no issues were detected. To run the repair utility in the repair mode, use the plesk repair command with the -y option.

One of the following aspects must be specified (click the name of the aspect to see a detailed explanation, aspect-specific options, and usage examples):

  • all - This aspect includes all the aspects below.
  • mail - This aspect diagnoses and troubleshoots issues with the mail server.
  • web - This aspect diagnoses and troubleshoots issues with the web server.
  • dns - This aspect diagnoses and troubleshoots issues with the DNS server.
  • ftp - This aspect diagnoses and troubleshoots issues with the FTP server.
  • db - This aspect diagnoses and troubleshoots issues with the Plesk database.
  • fs - This aspect diagnoses and troubleshoots issues with the file system.
  • mysql - This aspect diagnoses and troubleshoots issues with MySQL.
  • mssql - This aspect diagnoses and troubleshoots issues with Microsoft SQL Server.
  • installation - This aspect diagnoses and troubleshoots issues with Plesk itself.

Certain operations can provide extended output. To see the extended output, run the following command:

plesk repair ASPECT -v

Whenever the utility detects an issue, it classifies it as either a warning or an error, depending on its severity. After the utility finishes running, it returns an exit code determined by the severity of the detected issues:

  • Exit code “1” on if any errors are detected.
  • Exit code “0” if all detected issues are warnings, or if no issues are detected at all.

You can make the utility return exit code “1” after detecting any issues by running the following command:

plesk repair ASPECT -treat-warnings-as-errors

To get help for the plesk repair utility, run the plesk repair command with the help option:

plesk help repair

To get help for a specific aspect of the utility, run the same command specifying the aspect:

plesk help repair [ASPECT]

For example, the plesk help repair mail command will display help for the mail aspect.