AEM Dispatcher fails to restart due to missing ModSecurity debug log file

Last update: August 18, 2026

This article explains how to resolve an issue where Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Dispatcher fails to start or restart because the ModSecurity debug log file is missing from the expected location.

Description description

Environment

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Dispatcher (all versions)

Symptoms

Dispatcher service fails to start or restart.
Error messages or logs reference a missing file path: /var/log/httpd/modsec_debug.log
Manual inspection confirms that modsec_debug.log doesn’t exist in /var/log/httpd/.

Cause

The dispatcher can’t start because the ModSecurity debug log file (modsec_debug.log) is missing from the configured log directory, which prevents the logging subsystem from initializing properly.

Resolution resolution

Follow the steps below to resolve the issue:

Verify that the directory /var/log/httpd/ exists and is writable by the user running the dispatcher process. You may need root or sudo privileges for these steps.

Determine the user and group running the dispatcher process. This is typically the user configured to run the web server (such as apache or www-data). You can check this by running:

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`ps aux \| grep httpd`

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`ps aux \| grep apache`

Create the missing log file by running:

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`sudo touch /var/log/httpd/modsec_debug.log`

Set the correct ownership and permissions for the log file, replacing <user> and <group> with the actual user and group identified in step 2:

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`sudo chown <user>:<group> /var/log/httpd/modsec_debug.log sudo chmod 640 /var/log/httpd/modsec_debug.log`

Restart the dispatcher service using your standard service management command. For example:

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`sudo systemctl restart httpd`

Verify that the dispatcher starts successfully and that there are no errors related to modsec_debug.log in the logs.

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