Can't Determine the Home of LiteSpeed Web Server

When activating a new license, you may see the following error:

Back up current license files under /usr/local/lsws/conf/ ...
... saved current serial.no to /usr/local/lsws/conf/serial.no.backup.23163
Trying to switch to a new production license ...
... Saved serial number "xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx" to /usr/local/lsws/conf/serial.no
... Serial number is available.
... Contacting licensing server for license key ...
... failed to retrieve license key, please double check your serial number: Can't determine the Home of LiteSpeed Web Server, exit!.
removed uploaded serial.no
restored the original serial.no from /usr/local/lsws/conf/serial.no.backup.23163
ERROR Aborted!

Try re-registration or verification:

/usr/local/lsws/bin/lshttpd -r

or

/usr/local/lsws/bin/lshttpd -V

It returns the same error:

Can't determine the Home of LiteSpeed Web Server, exit!

Why can it not determine the home of LiteSpeed Web Server? Is there something wrong with the LSWS configuration file?

A search for /usr/local/lsws/conf/httpd_config.xml reveals that the file does not exist at all. The user has removed this important LSWS configuration file during the license key clean up process.

Reinstalling LSWS should fix the issue. In the future, though, be aware that it can be dangerous to manually remove the LSWS configuration file. It may cause server downtime and definitely is something that should be avoided.