The error Can’t open public_html: Too many levels of symbolic links happens for a number of reasons. You get this error on cPanel VPS Servers when trying to access a via FTP directory. That directory is linked to another directory and you don’t have the right permissions. Or your Kernel is out of date.

When you try to navigate to a directory that is sym-linked. You will see a shortcut icon in your FTP program. If the destination directory is outside of the users FTP permissions. You will get a Too many levels of symbolic links error.

Example FTP Error

Status: Resolving address of ftp.dev.com
Status: Connecting to 198.80.100.100:21...
Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Status: Initializing TLS...
Status: Verifying certificate...
Status: TLS connection established.
Status: Logged in
Status: Starting download of /public_html
Command: CWD /
Response: 250 OK. Current directory is /
Command: PWD
Response: 257 "/" is your current location
Command: TYPE A
Response: 200 TYPE is now ASCII
Command: PASV
Response: 227 Entering Passive Mode (151,80,176,146,192,226)
Command: RETR public_html
Response: 550 Can't open public_html: Too many levels of symbolic links
Error: Critical file transfer error

In this example, the user is trying to navigate to a folder that is outside of their permissions. When creating an FTP account in cPanel you specify a Directory that FTP user has access to. Deleting the FTP account and recreating it will the correct the error if you specify the correct allow locations for that FTP user.

OpenVZ or Virtuozzo – Too many levels of symbolic links

In CentOS 7.7 an update to systemd changed the way symbolic links are opened. cPanel when running OpenVZ or Virtuozzo the Too many levels of symbolic links or can’t open pid file error might be seen on startup. This is due to the Kernel host’s Kernel being outdated. You should update the Kernel on the hostnode to resolve this error.

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