IIS Express refuses to start!!! Please Help!

Question

_{Tuesday, March 1, 2011 4:45 PM}

I recently downloaded webmatrix hoping to play around with it but unfortunately it just won't open/load any web page I create. After doing a little research I learned that it uses IIS Express as the server so I did some more digging and eventually found out that IIS Express just won't start on my system (Win 7 64bit). I have gone through my firewall settings to see if that could be the problem but nothing doing. I even tried completely turning off my firewall and running IIS but still no luck. This is what I get when I try to run iisexpress.exe:  

"Starting IIS Express...

Report ListenerChannel stopped due to failure; ProtocolId:http,ListenerChannelId:0

HostableWebCore activation failed.

Unable to start iisexpress.

The interface is unknown.

For more information about the error, run iisexpress.exe with the tracing switch enabled."

Any ideas will be highly appreciated. I have been battling with this issue for two days straight.

All replies (9)

_{Wednesday, March 2, 2011 3:22 PM ✅Answered}

Did you try to un-install and re-install IIS Express? if you haven't tried, try to re-install and see if this problem is solved.

If re-installation of IIS Express doesn't solve your problem, then following is a workaround.

1. open applicationhost.config located in user profile directory (%userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config)

2. Find following two entries in the above config file and remove them (or comment them)

<add name="HttpLoggingModule" image="%IIS_BIN%\loghttp.dll" />
<add name="HttpLoggingModule" lockItem="true" />

3. Now start IIS Express from command line. If this works, you can open WebMatrix and 'Start' a site

Note that with this workaround you don't see http log files, but IIS Express should just work fine.

_{Tuesday, March 1, 2011 7:46 PM}

could run "iisexpress.exe /trace:e" and post the output here?

_{Wednesday, March 2, 2011 4:01 AM}

Hi, here is the output when iisexpress.exe /trace:e is run - C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express>iisexpress.exe/trace:e Starting IIS Express ... Initializing the W3 Server Started CTC = 46760909 W3 Server initializing WinSock. CTC = 46760987 W3 Server WinSock initialized. CTC = 46760987 W3 Server ThreadPool initialized (ipm has signalled). CTC = 46760987 Failed to call RegisterModule for dll=C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express\loghttp.dll, mod=HttpLoggingModule Failed processing with hr = 800706b5 Error loading global modules. hr = 800706b5 Terminating W3_SERVER object Start listenerChannel http:0 Initializing the W3 Server Started CTC = 46762157 W3 Server initializing WinSock. CTC = 46762220 W3 Server WinSock initialized. CTC = 46762220 W3 Server ThreadPool initialized (ipm has signalled). CTC = 46762220 Failed to call RegisterModule for dll=C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express\loghttp.dll, mod=HttpLoggingModule Failed processing with hr = 800706b5 Error loading global modules. hr = 800706b5 Terminating W3_SERVER object InitComplete event signalled Report ListenerChannel stopped due to failure; ProtocolId:http, ListenerChannelId:0 Process Model Shutdown called Waiting for all LISTENER_CHANNELS to stop Failed to start 'HostedWASStart'. Error = 48381152 HostableWebCore activation failed. Unable to start iisexpress. The interface is unknown. For more information about the error, run iisexpress.exe with the tracing switch enabled (/trace:error). C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express>

_{Wednesday, March 2, 2011 6:30 PM}

vikomall, thank you so much for your input! I had already tried uninstalling and re-installing iis express a couple of times but that did not solve anything. So I followed your workaround and voila! its up and running. However, now we have a new problem. When i try to open a website created on webmatrix I now get the following error: HTTP Error 500.0 - Internal Server Error Module "HttpLoggingModule" could not be found...(which I commented out) Do you have any idea how I may go about solving this issue to enable me work with webmatrix? Thanks again for your time.

_{Wednesday, March 2, 2011 7:39 PM}

Hey vikomall, never mind my last comment. I am not sure what I had initially done but everything seems to now be running fine. I have a feeling I must have commented out a wrong command because after going through the applicationhost file again, I realised that the line: add name="HttpLoggingModule" lockItem="true" - was not commented out. So I commented it out and now pages are loading from webmatrix just fine. So what book do I need to read to learn how to debug this kind of staff or does that only come with experience? Hey again, thanks a bunch for your help!!

_{Wednesday, March 2, 2011 7:44 PM}

By the line I meant : add name="HttpLoggingModule" lockItem="true"

_{Wednesday, March 2, 2011 7:53 PM}

You can learn about IIS Express from http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/860/iis-express/

and to get started with IIS http://learn.iis.net/GetStarted

_{Wednesday, March 2, 2011 8:16 PM}

Thanks...

_{Tuesday, April 26, 2011 10:25 PM}

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this post and the answer that follow is.  I've spent three days with this exact problem; I could have written your problem request verbatim!  The answer you got worked for me, too.  Now I can begin to learn this program.

I spent a lot of hours searching the net and this was the only thing I found, (that I was able to understand, anyway), that worked.

 Thanks!

 Gerry Egan

Raleigh, NC