The Problem

You’re trying to connect to your NAS’s web interface but it’s just spinning forever and not actually loading.

The Cause

The cause can be a number of things, but it boils down to an issue with the http service or proxy service on the QNAP.

Sometimes a configuration problem will cause the service to behave badly. A firmware update may cause a mismatch between the config file and the service being run.

The Fix

I’m assuming at this point that you’ve tried rebooting the NAS and that hasn’t resolved the issue. Here are some other things you can try.

Reset the Admin account config

  1. Download, install and run WinSCP
  2. In WinSCP, set the option to show hidden files (keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Alt-H or Click Options > Preferences > Panels and ensure that “Show hidden files” is checked, then click OK )
  3. Connect to the IP of your QNAP NAS as Admin
  4. Click Open Directory and enter: /etc/config/.qos_config/users/admin/
  5. Download the config and .qtoken files to your local machine as a backup
  6. Delete the config and .qtoken files on the QNAP
  7. Click Commands > Open Terminal
  8. Type “reboot” and click execute to reboot the NAS

Note it may take a long time for the NAS to reboot. Leave it to do what it needs to do for at least half an hour. Periodically attempt to reconnect to WinSCP / the Web page, or use QFinder to determine when the QNAP is back online.

Restart the HTTP server / amend configuration

If the above does not work, you may have a different problem, not currently covered in this guide. It’s worth restarting the http service and confirming both start OK. Note all commands here are case sensitive. Slashes (\) and backslashes (/) are also not interchangeable as they are in a Windows environment.

  1. Download and run Putty

  2. Connect to your QNAP via SSH and log in as Admin

  3. Navigate to the init.d directory

    1

    cd /etc/init.d/

  4. List all the http shell scripts, you should see both “Qthttpd.sh” (Web Server) and “thttpd.sh” (Apache Proxy)

    1

    ls -1 | grep 'http'

  5. Restart Qthttpd, confirm that shutdown and start both return OK.

    1

    ./Qthttpd.sh restart

  6. Restart thttpd, confirm that shutdown and start both return OK

    1

    ./thttpd.sh restart

If the Apache proxy does not start:-

  1. Get the Web Access Port config, you should see “8080” being displayed. If it does not, go to Step 2.

    1

    /sbin/getcfg SYSTEM "Web Access Port"

  2. Set the Web Access Port to 8080 as should be default

    1

    /sbin/setcfg SYSTEM "Web Access Port" 8080

  3. Restart the thttpd service and apache proxy

    1

    /etc/init.d/thttpd.sh restart