Not a HASH reference at /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/ea-nginx-userdata

Symptoms

Your sites are not displaying, and you see a message similar to the following when rebuilding the Nginx configuration.

The following user related errors need attention:
            User “username”: Not a HASH reference at /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/ea-nginx-userdata line 147.

Description

The issue occurs when a user's cpanel_password_protected_directories.json userdata file is empty. This file should always contain at least {}.

Workaround

1. Access the server's command line as the 'root' user via SSH or "Terminal" in WHM.
2. Run the following command to find the empty cpanel_password_protected_directories.json files and add {} to them.

   find /var/cpanel/userdata/ -name cpanel_password_protected_directories.json -size 0 -exec sh -c "echo \{\} >> {}" \;

3. Rebuild the Nginx configuration.

   /scripts/ea-nginx config --all