brew install nginx fails to link - homebrew

Question

I am attempting to install nginx using the brew package manager, but it fails to link. How can I fix this?
roc-web5537:Downloads cmuench$ brew install nginx
Warning: Your Xcode (4.3.3) is outdated
Please install Xcode 4.5.
==> Installing nginx dependency: pcre
==> Downloading ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/pcre-8.31.tar.bz2
Already downloaded: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/pcre-8.31.tar.bz2
==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/pcre/8.31 --enable-utf8 --enable-unicode-properties --enable-pcregrep-libz --enable-pcregrep-libbz2
==> make test
==> make install
Warning: Could not link pcre. Unlinking...
Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
You can try again using `brew link pcre'
==> Summary
/usr/local/Cellar/pcre/8.31: 130 files, 3.2M, built in 18 seconds
==> Installing nginx
==> Downloading http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.2.4.tar.gz
Already downloaded: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/nginx-1.2.4.tar.gz
==> Patching
patching file conf/nginx.conf
==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/nginx/1.2.4 --with-http_ssl_module --with-pcre --with-ipv6 --with-cc-opt=-I/usr/local/include --with-ld-opt=-L/usr/local/lib --conf-path=/usr/loca
==> make
==> make install
==> Caveats
In the interest of allowing you to run `nginx` without `sudo`, the default
port is set to localhost:8080.
If you want to host pages on your local machine to the public, you should
change that to localhost:80, and run `sudo nginx`. You'll need to turn off
any other web servers running port 80, of course.
You can start nginx automatically on login running as your user with:
mkdir -p ~/Library/LaunchAgents
cp /usr/local/Cellar/nginx/1.2.4/homebrew.mxcl.nginx.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.nginx.plist
Though note that if running as your user, the launch agent will fail if you
try to use a port below 1024 (such as http's default of 80.)
Warning: Could not link nginx. Unlinking...
Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
You can try again using `brew link nginx'
Warning: /usr/local/sbin is not in your PATH
You can amend this by altering your ~/.bashrc file
==> Summary
/usr/local/Cellar/nginx/1.2.4: 9 files, 952K, built in 9 seconds

Answer 1

I had this issue a few days ago with installation of Yeoman. It seems that some of the folders in /usr/local might not be owned by you and that can cause issues. In my case I had a couple of folders in /usr/local/ like that.
Go to /usr/local
cd /usr/local
Check who owns the folders
ls -l
Do the following for folders not owned by you (replacing sub-foldername with sub folders name obviously):
sudo chown $(whoami) /usr/local/<sub-foldername>
and then call
brew link pcre
It should link successfully.
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

This can sometimes happen if there area already files (or symlinks) with the same name. To force a link, you can use brew link -f pcre. If you want to see whether there are any files preventing the link, you can use brew link --dry-run pcre.
If there are no files listed by brew link --dry-run pcre, then it is likely that jwwishart's answer is the correct one.

Answer 3

I had to remove manually and reinstall pcre and openssl then nginx will work:
brew remove pcre
brew remove openssl
brew install pcre
brew install openssl
nginx

Answer 4

Was getting
erma4inapower#MacBook-Pro-Dmitrij  ~  brew services start php
Error: Permission denied # rb_sysopen - /Users/erma4inapower/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.php.plist
Ended up:
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /Users/erma4inapower/Library/LaunchAgents/

Answer 5

I had the same issue and was causing problems while other services using brew.
how to fix run
brew doctor
remove all files which are causing the issue. might have to do
rm -rf "/usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core"
brew tap homebrew/core
if warning comes up
make sure you are in master branch by
git -C $(brew --repo homebrew/core)
checkout Important is the brew doctor command which help me fix the issue.