Apache shutdown unexpectedly (XAMPP) - the "common solution" is not solving the issue

Question

When trying to start XAMPP (v3.3.0) is outputting the following error:

14:35:15  [Apache]  Error: Apache shutdown unexpectedly.
14:35:15  [Apache]  This may be due to a blocked port, missing dependencies, 
14:35:15  [Apache]  improper privileges, a crash, or a shutdown by another method.

The most common answer is to change the listening ports since theyre already in use, but that does not solve the issue. When checking for.network connections for TCP, the socket is NOT in use and hence my conclusion is that that can't be the problem. However, these are my current httpd.conf and httpd-ssl.conf settings:

httpd.conf

Listen 8080
ServerName localhost:8080

httpd-ssl.conf

Listen 4343
<VirtualHost _default_:4343>

The issue came up after restarting my computer overnight and I have therefore a problem of tracing what could cause this error. My question(s) are therefore:

How would a more experienced Apache user approach this problem? I would prefer not to reinstall all of XAMPP since I expect that to produce even more problems in my current setup.

I have tried to change the ports to 80 | 8080 | 8081 and the SSL ports to 443 | 4343 | 4433 and that is not making any difference. Furthmore, Skype seems to be a problem since it is occupying the 80 port, but that is not downloaded and therefore can't be the cause.

Answer 1

I recommend to start apache from command line (httpd) because some early start-up error messages to console are hidden when started from XAMP and do not appear in log files.