Fixing port issue in WSL 2 after PHP upgrade

You may encounter a specific issue when upgrading PHP in WSL.
In this case, we will look at error 'ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED'.

Step 1 - Verify if nginx is listening

You first need to verify if nginx is listening on port 80 and 443 (SSL).

sudo lsof -i :80
sudo lsof -i :443

Step 2 - Stop and disable Apache

If you see 'apache2' instead of 'nginx' under 'COMMAND', you need to make some changes. Stop and disable Apache by running the following commands.

sudo systemctl stop apache2
sudo systemctl disable apache2

If you want, you can remove Apache by running the following commands.

sudo apt remove apache2 apache2-bin apache2-data apache2-utils libapache2-mod-php8.3
sudo apt purge apache2 apache2-bin apache2-data apache2-utils libapache2-mod-php8.3
sudo apt autoremove

Step 3 - Check and test nginx configuration

Check the nginx configuration to see if the ports are correctly configured.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Test the configuration by running the following command.

sudo nginx -t

Step 4 - Restart nginx and verify it is running

Restart nginx by running the following command.

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Verify if nginx is running by running the following command.

sudo systemctl status nginx

Step 5 - Verify if nginx is listening

Finally, you should repeat step 1 and check if nginx is listening on the correct ports.

sudo lsof -i :80
sudo lsof -i :443

You should now see 'nginx' under 'COMMAND' and everything should run normal again. After this, you can run valet restart to ensure there are no open issues.