I’m unable to access cPanel, I always get an error “http error 404 the requested page was not found”. What’s wrong here?

That was a recent support ticket received at our Server Support department where we resolve support queries for web hosts.

Website owners often face this error when there is a typo error in the cPanel link, DNS issues, and more.

Today, we’ll discuss the top 4 reasons for this error “http error 404 the requested page was not found” in cPanel and how our Server Support Engineers fix them.

What is HTTP Error 404?

Before we go ahead, let’s get a quick idea of the 404 error.

Simply put, HTTP error 404 indicates that the client could communicate with the server. However, the server can’t find the document requested by the user.

How 404 error page looks like?

And, it can be caused by a broken or dead link, missing files, redirecting to non-existent URLs, etc.

Basically, a server log analysis gives us an idea about the origin of the problem. And, in cPanel servers, we check the cPanel error logs /usr/local/cpanel/logs/error_log to identify the root cause.

“HTTP error 404, the requested page was not found” in cPanel – Causes and Fixes

Based on our experience in managing cPanel accounts, we’ve seen many reasons for this error “http error 404 the requested page was not found” in cPanel. Now let’s see the common causes and how our Support Engineers fix them.

1) Local or network firewall issues

cPanel works on custom ports 2082 and 2083. But, most ISPs or custom firewalls usually block custom ports.

Website owners face this error when the cPanel ports are blocked on user’s system due to this ISP or firewall restriction.

Solution

Our Hosting Engineers first check the telnet results to cPanel ports 2082 and 2083 from user’s PC.

telnet domain.com 2083
telnet domain.con 2082

This gives us an idea of whether firewall blocks the connections or not. If firewall blocks the connections, we suggest customers to open the cPanel ports in the firewall.

But, in some cases, users may not have access to the security firewall. For example, company firewall or may be office firewall. In such cases, we suggest the customers to access cPanel using the subdomain URL “https://cpanel.domain.com“.

This enables users to access cPanel over port 80 via a proxy.

Most importantly, we ensure that Proxysubdomains feature is enabled in the server for this option to work. In addition to that, we ensure that the DNS of the subdomain “cpanel.domain.com” points to the right server.

2) Wrong cPanel URL

Sometimes users type in the URL manually to access cPanel.

But, a typo in the server hostname, domain name or cPanel port can result in this error.

Solution

Firstly, our Hosting Engineers check the DNS connectivity of the domain using the below command.

dig domain.com

Similarly, we check the cPanel URL and ensures that the server hostname, domain name, and the cPanel port are given correct.

3) Missing cPanel redirect

Sometimes, users get 404 Not Found error, when they access cPanel using the URL “https://domain.com/cpanel“.

This is due to the missing alias entry in the configuration file of the web server.

Solution

Our Support Engineers check and enure that correct alias entries are added in the configuration file of the web server.

For example, we use the Script Alias directive on Apache web server to add alias entries. This aliases the location and informs Apache that files in that directory are intended to be executable.

So, to redirect all requests with /cpanel to the original cPanel location, we add the following code in Apache configuration file.

ScriptAlias /cpanel /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/redirect.cgi

Most importantly, we rebuild the configuration file of the web server and restart the web server to reflect these changes.

4) Issues with cPanel theme

This happens usually when users attempt to access custom software like Fantastico from cPanel.

For example, in case of Fantastico, this error can occur when the cPanel theme doesn’t have a fantastico symlink or the symlink being misdirected.

Solution

Here, our Support Engineers create a symlink that points to the fantastico installation directory.

For example, consider a case where website owner uses cPanel paper_lantern theme.

Here, we go to the location ‘/usr/local/cpanel/base/frontend/paper_lantern’ and create symlink to the fantastico folder ‘/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/fantastico/’.

ln -s /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/fantastico/ fantastico

If the above 4 solutions won’t work, our Support Engineers regenerate all the system configuration files and reset permissions using the cPanel upgrade script ‘/scripts/upcp’.

Conclusion

In short, cPanel “HTTP error 404, the requested page was not found” can occur due to network/local firewall issues, typo in cPanel URL, and more. Today, we’ve discussed the top 4 reasons for this error and how our Server Support Engineers fix them.