Deploying a Node.js application on shared hosting environments like Namecheap's "Stellar" or "Stellar Plus" plans often feels like a victory—until you load the page and see the dreaded 503 Service Unavailable error. For students and developers accustomed to VPS environments (DigitalOcean, AWS) or localhost , this error is confusing. The server is running, the files are there, but the application refuses to connect. This guide provides a definitive technical solution to this specific error. We will bypass generic troubleshooting and focus on the architecture of cPanel's Node.js selector, the package.json configuration, and the resource limits that actually cause this crash. The Root Cause: Phusion Passenger and Port Binding To fix the error, you must understand why it happens. When you run node server.js on your laptop, your application binds directly to a specific port (e.g., localhost:3000 ). You access it directly via that port....
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