“HTTP request status” in Drupal 6.x on localhost

I just set up XAMPP on my Vista x64 PC and found that after installing Drupal 6 that the status report was throwing up an error.

HTTP request status

Your system or network configuration does not allow Drupal to access web pages, resulting in reduced functionality. This could be due to your webserver configuration or PHP settings, and should be resolved in order to download information about available updates, fetch aggregator feeds, sign in via OpenID, or use other network-dependent services.

It took a while to find the solution, but I eventually found it on drupal.org. The solution was posted by mrSjoerd.

  1. Open up the hosts file which is located at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc in notepad
  2. You should find a line like the following at the bottom:
    ::1             localhost
  3. Add a # in front of it to make it look like this:
    #::1             localhost
  4. Save the file and close notepad.
  5. Refresh the status page in Drupal and the error should be gone.  This should work without a restart, but if it doesn’t work without a restart it is worth a try.

14 Comments to ““HTTP request status” in Drupal 6.x on localhost”

  1. Tommy 17 May 2009 at 3:13 am #

    This solve the problem. Thank you very much!

    Reply
  2. Kathy 18 May 2009 at 2:07 pm #

    Thanks! This worked.

    Reply
  3. Ken 24 May 2009 at 3:12 am #

    Excellent! Thank you. I’ve been searching for hours for this solution. Now I just need to figure out why it worked.

    Reply
    • admin 24 May 2009 at 10:58 am #

      Apache uses the hosts file. So when it does a localhost request it was looking at the IPv6 IP address. You comment it out and it uses IPv4. Not sure if this is a Drupal thing or an Apache thing, I am sure Apache must be upto date for IPv6 though.

      Reply
  4. Antti 6 July 2009 at 9:04 am #

    Thanx many. Tried all kind of thinks at this finally did it.
    Cheers

    Reply
  5. Evieg 8 July 2009 at 6:07 pm #

    I am on Windows 7 RC x64 and experiencing the same issue with the latest Drupal (6.13) and Wamp (2.0h). That line had the # already but which didn’t help but removing the line entirely worked.

    Reply
  6. Craig 21 July 2009 at 11:06 am #

    Hey dude, thanks for the help this fixed my problem :D

    Reply
  7. yeah~ 5 August 2009 at 6:39 pm #

    that was great! ass-saver article!

    Reply
  8. Heart Driven 16 November 2009 at 11:23 pm #

    Worked like a charm.

    Reply
  9. greenavus 30 December 2009 at 11:54 pm #

    Tried using the example you stated above but everytime i try to save it after adding the # sign, it comes up with this error report “pls check weather if this file is opened by another program”.

    What other program could be using it?

    Reply
    • admin 31 December 2009 at 12:07 pm #

      @greenavus, Go to Start, type in notepad, then right click notepad and select Run as Administrator. Navigate to the hosts file and open, edit and save it.

      Reply
  10. greenavus 31 December 2009 at 12:21 pm #

    Thank you, thank you, thank you soo much. I tried everysingle suggestion on the official drupal forum and it did not work. This was by far the simplest and the best solution.

    Will be a regular visitor to your blog from now on.

    Reply
  11. wef1 2 February 2010 at 1:03 am #

    Many thanks! That was clear, concise, and very helpful.

    Reply
  12. leunam75 3 February 2010 at 8:34 pm #

    thanks for the help!!

    Reply

Leave a Reply