What to do if a Node.JS application won't start?

If the Node.JS application does not start, it means that Phusion Passenger is unable to launch the application by hooking into the listen() function in your code.

There can be two causes:

• Your application does not have a listen() call, which means it is not a Node.JS application
• Your application has multiple calls to listen() so Phusion Passenger does not know where to hook in. You will need to make some adjustments to help Phusion Passenger launch your application, see the official Phusion Passenger documentation.

Updated on: 14/02/2026