If apache crashes or freezes, it is helpful if you include a backtrace in the bug report. In case of a crash, do the following: 1) Install the packages apache2-bin-dbgsym libapr1-dbgsym libaprutil1-dbgsym gdb. 2) Add "CoreDumpDirectory /var/cache/apache2/core" to your apache configuration. 3) Execute as root: mkdir -p /var/cache/apache2/core chown www-data: /var/cache/apache2/core /etc/init.d/apache2 stop ulimit -c unlimited /etc/init.d/apache2 start 4) Do whatever it takes to reproduce the crash. There should now be the file /var/cache/apache2/core . 5) If you use a forking MPM (e.g. mod_prefork), execute: gdb /usr/sbin/apache2 /var/cache/apache2/core/core (gdb) bt full ... (gdb) quit If you use a threaded mpm (mod_worker, mod_event), execute: gdb /usr/sbin/apache2 /var/cache/apache2/core/core (gdb) thread apply all bt full ... (gdb) quit Include the backtrace in the bug report. 6) Undo the change to your configuration, uninstall the debug packages, remove /var/cache/apache2/core In case of a hanging process, you don't need a core dump and you can skip steps 2 and 3. 4) Reproduce the problem. Get the pid of a hanging process. 5) Start gdb with gdb -p pid and continue as described above. It may also be helpful to include the output of strace -p pid