I was experimenting with the Apple Server application for Mac OS 10.10. It is nice but a bit limited for my development machine. I wanted to revert back to the default Apache that came with 10.10. Simply removing the Server application did not resolve the issue. After a bit of Googling I was coming up with no results. Running this command, I was getting a clue…

# apachectl start

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.httpd.plist: Operation already in progress

This was interesting. When I opened up that file it still referenced the Apache installation that came along with Server.app. I was able to restore get things going by updating that file with the following contents.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.apache.httpd</string>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
        <key>XPC_SERVICES_UNAVAILABLE</key>
        <string>1</string>
    </dict>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/sbin/httpd</string>
        <string>-D</string>
        <string>FOREGROUND</string>
    </array>
    <key>OnDemand</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
</plist>

After that, kill ant httpd process that is running and then start the webserver.

# apachectl start