Are there any files in /etc/nginx/conf.d/?

No there are not.

Is nginx running? What's the output of

sudo netstat -plutn | grep 80

?

whoa, apache2?

`tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 14646/apache2`

Well there we go..
I don't remember ever installing it. I started with a clean Ubuntu 12.04 digital ocean image (not a LAMP one) and only followed the nginx tutorials.


Now when I stop apache and restart nginx & fpm, nothing is coming up any more in the browser and when I run that same netstat grep, nothing comes up.

Where to go from this point?

Uninstall apache and reboot your droplet:

sudo apt-get remove apache2

sudo reboot

If nginx doesn't work, check its error logs and see what it's not starting.

When I issue that command I get:

Package apache2 is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 136 not upgraded.

but if I type
which apache2
I get
/usr/sbin/apache2

After reboot Apache2 and nginx are both running

Hmm. What's the output of

sudo dpkg --get-selections | grep apache

?

apache2-mpm-prefork install
apache2-utils install
apache2.2-bin install
apache2.2-common install
libapache2-mod-php5 install

Okay, so the apache binaries are installed. You don't need any of these packages, so uninstall them and reboot your droplet:

sudo apt-get remove apache2* libapache2*

sudo reboot

The following packages will be REMOVED:
apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils apache2.2-bin apache2.2-common libapache2-mod-php5

Apache is gone now, nginx is running but does not seem to be listening for traffic on port 80 as it is setup in my config.

If I run 'sudo netstat -plutn | grep 80', nothing comes up.

Thanks for all your help!

Are you sure tha tnginx is running? What's the output of

sudo ps -wwaux | grep nginx

?

Warning: bad ps syntax, perhaps a bogus '-'? See http://procps.sf.net/faq.html
root 1541 0.0 0.1 10252 884 ? Ss 02:40 0:00 nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx
www-data 1542 0.0 0.2 10392 1288 ? S 02:40 0:04 nginx: worker process
www-data 1543 0.0 0.2 10392 1288 ? S 02:40 0:04 nginx: worker process
www-data 1544 0.0 0.2 10392 1288 ? S 02:40 0:04 nginx: worker process
www-data 1545 0.0 0.2 10392 1288 ? S 02:40 0:00 nginx: worker process
1000 2122 0.0 0.1 4368 812 pts/0 S+ 15:48 0:00 grep --color=auto nginx

Hmm. What's your droplet's IP address? Also, which port is nginx listening on?

sudo netstat -plutn | grep nginx

My droplet's ip is 162.243.82.188

That command gives no output.

According to what I can see in the nginx conf files it should be listening on 80.

What else to check?

That means nginx is not running. Try starting it:

sudo service nginx start

If that does not work, try seeing what the error is:

sudo tail /var/log/nginx/error.log

I forgot to check if it was already running before starting, but started it with no errors - although I think it was already running. The tail command produces no output.

I'm ready to give up and start over at this point. I appreciate your help.

Well.. I've already made some good progress with a clean re-image.

I think my problem came down to the symlink I was making between the sites-available config file to the sites-enabled folder.

On the old install, my site's config file in the sites-enabled folder was glowing in the terminal. I thought it was because it was a symlink, but now I think it was indicative of pointing to a location that didn't exist.
I didn't really notice anything was different because I had followed one of the tutorials which had instructed me to remove the default config file from the sites-enabled directory.

This is how I was creating the link:
/etc/nginx$ sudo cp sites-available/default sites-available/one
/etc/nginx$ sudo ln -s sites-available/one sites-enabled/one

to which I investigated to find:

/etc/nginx$ ls -l sites-enabled/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Dec 8 05:10 default -> /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Dec 8 05:20 one -> sites-available/one

Oops! So that explains why my config files were not being loaded.

After creating that link properly, it seems to be working now!

What can I say other than I guess that was a hard lesson learned, but at least I figured it out!

Thanks for your help again!

Sweet! Glad to hear it's working now :]