502 Bad Gateway - Phalcon + Nginx + CentOS7

Hi. I have a digitalocean server running phalcon. But I am not trying to fix my URLs so they are pretty. I had everything working on the default config for Nginx, although I had to go to domain/app/public without rewrites, you know... the "unpretty way."

In an attempt to clean up the urls, so I could go domain.me, i checked out these "installation notes" (https://docs.phalcon.io/en/latest/reference/nginx.html)

I tried all of the configurations (adjusted for my domain, of course), and came up with errors ranging from a simple text "Access denied" to now "502 Bad Gateway" error.

I am not sure what the problem is, I have checked out other similar threads, and they offer little in the way of relevant guidance that I haven't already tried. I want to clarify that everything is installed and working, prior to my adjusting the nginx config.

Here is my current config:

server { listen 80; server_name localhost;

charset      utf-8;

#access_log  /var/log/nginx/host.access.log  main;

set $root_path '/usr/share/nginx/html/liamhockley-www/hockley_personal/public';

location / {
    root   $root_path;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;

    # if file exists return it right away
    if (-f $request_filename) {
        break;
    }

    # otherwise rewrite it
    if (!-e $request_filename) {
        rewrite ^(.+)$ /index.php?_url=$1 last;
        break;
    }
}

location ~ \.php {
    # try_files    $uri =404;

    fastcgi_index  /index.php;
    fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;

    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_split_path_info       ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
    fastcgi_param PATH_INFO       $fastcgi_path_info;
    fastcgi_param PATH_TRANSLATED $document_root$fastcgi_path_info;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}

location ~* ^/(css|img|js|flv|swf|download)/(.+)$ {
    root $root_path;
}

}