Overpass API: areas.bin not generating

I'm trying to setup overpass on a local server and everything is working except for areas. Whenever I try an area query it gives the following error:

No such file or directory /opt/overpass/db/areas.bin File_Blocks::File_Blocks::1

And, in fact, that file does not exist. The only files in db with area in the name are (all of which are like 8 bytes):

area_blocks.bin.idx.shadow
area_blocks.bin.shadow
areas.bin.idx
areas.bin.idx.shadow
areas.bin.shadow
areas_shadow.lock
area_tags_global.bin.idx
area_tags_global.bin.idx.shadow
area_tags_global.bin.shadow
area_tags_local.bin.idx
area_tags_local.bin.idx.shadow
area_tags_local.bin.shadow
area_version
area_version.shadow

I know that areas have to be generated by another process, and to me it seems like it's not making them and I cannot figure out why. From here, the process ./osm3s_query --progress --rules has been running for 5 days, which is more than expected. The log in area_update.log just says this same thing over and over (<'s removed):

2021-07-06 10:52:02: update finished
2021-07-06 10:52:05: update started
xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
osm version="0.6" generator="Overpass API 0.7.56.9 76e5016d">
note>The data included in this document is from www.openstreetmap.org. The data is made available under ODbL. /note>
meta osm_base=""/>

/osm>

I've tried restarting everything, deleting what 'area' files are there, using launching methods from both here and here, and nothing has made a difference. I can't find many posts online about others having this issue which makes me think I'm just missing something painfully obvious, but either way any help or ideas would be very much appreciated!

EDIT: Fixed this, solution in comment below.