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Droplet not responding after reboot SSH timeout

Posted on July 13, 2025

Hey everyone,

I rebooted my Ubuntu 22.04 Droplet earlier today from the DigitalOcean dashboard, and now I can’t connect via SSH. It just times out every time. The droplet shows as “running” in the control panel, but I can’t ping it or access it in any way.

I didn’t make any firewall changes recently, and I’m using the same SSH key that worked before. I’m worried something got stuck during the reboot.

Is there any way to access the console or fix it without destroying the Droplet?

Thanks in advance!



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Accepted Answer

Hi,

You can try using the Recovery Console from the DigitalOcean dashboard. It usually works even if SSH isn’t responding.

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/recovery/recovery-console/

Once you’re in, check if the SSH service is active with sudo systemctl status ssh. You can also inspect the logs under /var/log/syslog or /var/log/cloud-init.log to see if anything went wrong during reboot.

If the Droplet seems completely stuck, you can boot into Recovery Mode and manually fix or inspect config files from there.

And if you’re still stuck, reach out to support at: https://do.co/support

They might be able to help without needing to destroy the Droplet.

- Bobby

The recovery console is intended for cases like this when the ssh service is not responding.

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/recovery/recovery-console/

Once you’re in, check:

sudo systemctl status ssh

and look at logs in /var/log/syslog or journalctl -xe for clues.

If needed, you can also use Recovery Mode, mount your disk, and fix config files manually.

And if it’s still stuck after that, open a support ticket at do.co/support — they can help get you back up without destroying the Droplet.

Hi,

You can try using the Recovery Console from the DigitalOcean dashboard. It usually works even if SSH isn’t responding.

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/recovery/recovery-console/

Once you’re in, check if the SSH service is active with sudo systemctl status ssh. You can also inspect the logs under /var/log/syslog or /var/log/cloud-init.log to see if anything went wrong during reboot.

If the Droplet seems completely stuck, you can boot into Recovery Mode and manually fix or inspect config files from there.

And if you’re still stuck, reach out to support at: https://do.co/support

They might be able to help without needing to destroy the Droplet.

  • Bobby

Thank u…

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