HAProxy not working / starting after brand new plugin install

[rohitashs]

I have Opnsense running as my home router on a ESXi VM. I recently update to the latest version 25.7.9_7. I'm trying to setup HAProxy (for the first time) to expose some self-hosted services (all still in planning stage). I'm relatively new to home labs and self hosting so learning along the way. I have setup a domain Cloudflare and have got the ddns working in Opnsense I also have got a wildcard certificate for my domain from LetsEncrypt working. Next step is to install the HAProxy plugin and do a test with one dummy self hosted web server. I can successfully install the HAProxy Plugin and then see it under the services menu in Opnsense. When i try to go to the settings however I get "There are pending configuration changes that must be applied in order for them to take effect. To review them visit the Config Diff page." on the Settings tab (and on all the other tabs un Settings). There is a button to Apply and to Test Syntax. Test Syntax says there are no errors. When I "Apply" it does nothing and I keep seeing the same thing. I cannot see any of the actual settings on any of the tabs - just the documentation. I dont see anything in the System Logs for anything related to HAProxy and the HAProxy log is empty. When I go to ConfigDiff i see these 3 lines at the top:
--- /usr/local/etc/haproxy.conf   1969-12-31 16:00:00.000000000 -0800 (in red)
+++ /usr/local/etc/haproxy.conf.staging   2025-12-16 23:11:58.352843000 -0800 (in green)
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ (in blue)

Can someone please guide me in the right direction for troubleshooting? I've been searching the internet for almost a day now with no progress yet. Thanks in advance!

[Monviech (Cedrik)]

If you have cloudflare try to use caddy instead its way easier to setup:

https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/how-tos/caddy.html

[ctmarc]

... or try to get a minimal frontend running, for example listening on 0.0.0.0:80, without any backend pools or anything attached to it.
I got similar messages in the beginning (or probably exactly the same) but those went away after configuring the first service.

Afterwards, those will be really helpful in order to prevent errors.
After adding any change, you'll be able to test the syntax of the generated configuration, and get immediate feedback before killing your HAProxy by applying a invalid configuration :-)

I didn't research the message at that point but it made sense... in my mind that a staging config will only be generated after any configuration is available, and that a "interim" staging configuration will cause a warning to be shown about a "pending configuration change" that contains nothing.

And lastly, I wouldn't be too afraid to use HAProxy or OPNSense, or to add things there, because they are very stable and it's a pleasure to have them running, and so lang as you don't have huge production systems behind them, you can play with it and don't have to be afraid about anything.

[rohitashs]

If you have cloudflare try to use caddy instead its way easier to setup:

https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/how-tos/caddy.html

Thanks, will look into this.

[rohitashs]

My issue is I cannot even see the settings and controls to setup the minimal front end or even enable the service. I just see the documentation in the HA Proxy tabs and absolutely no fields or settings. I have tried to uninstall and reinstall the plugin many times.

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Notice the small triangles on every tab but the introduction? These open up the menues.