I created a Virtual Application in IIS 7 to host my app so I could test it on other machines on the local network, since the development web server will not respond to requests from machines other than the local machine. I had to allow IIS to login as me to get into My Documents, and enabled ASP.NET impersonation through the IIS. That worked fine, but...
Now the ASP.NET Development Webserver won't serve anything at all. I hit debug in VS2008, the dev webserver starts up seemingly fine, but then the IDE launches Chrome and the browser just sits there twiddling its thumbs. It never fails, but never loads. Nothing.
There are no errors from ASP.NET Development Webserver or Visual Studio or Chrome that I can find. I even looked in the Event Log. Nothing.
What did I just stupidly do?
I haven't got Chrome installed at the moment so i can't confirm for sure before i answer this, but IIRC i have seen this before and the VS debugger cannot correctly launch Chrome and serve it pages from Cassini (the VS development webserver).
The way i got round this previously is to just create a virtual directory in the local (dev machine) instance of IIS, and point it to the folder containing your web project. Then you can use Chrome to browse it just like a normal web site. You can then manually attach the VS debugger to the right worker process.
Alternatively, you could start up the debugger as you are now, and when Chrome sits there, you could manually enter the url for the page you want to start with (it will be http://localhost:<some port>/default.aspx or similar). VS won't be able to debug the script in the page, but it should still debug the compiled code just fine (like it does for Firefox).
Holy crap, I know what it was. When I changed the IIS settings to have ASP.NET impersonate me to get into the My Documents folder, it modified the web.config file. Now you're probably thinking, well duh, of course it did. I honestly thought that IIS 7 had some new way of dealing with impersonation other than the web.config setting. Turns out it's just built into the MMC snap-in to manage it now, but it does it in the same way.
Once I reverted back to the original version of the web.config file, ASP.NET Development Server happily worked exactly as intended again. I suppose ASP.NET Development Server craps out if there are impersonation settings in the web.config.
Related
It seems like the View in Browser option doesn't really require IIS and it seems to process ASP pages fine. So how does it really work without a web server?
They used to have a developer web server (Cassini) which is dead long time back so is there some kind of built in capability in visual studio? Who processes the requests by asp pages if it doesn't require IIS?
I already have IIS installed so I am not sure if is servicing the pages but seems like it will work without IIS because I don't configure anything in IIS and new ASP.NET projects work out of the box as well View in Browser option for an asp page option which just directly executes that page.
Actually this is what occurs:
Your web web.config is copied.
Then VS spools up a WHOLE running copy of IIS (it is the express version - but it is the same for the most part as the full edition of II).
Once VS spools up and starts and configures that running copy of IIS?
Then your web page and web application can run. If you look at your system try, you see this:
So in above that 2nd from the left in the tray shows that blue thing icon. I have right clicked on it to show the options you see.
So now you have a running copy of IIS on your computer. So you ARE running a full web server here. (well, ok IIS express - but the base parts and what that means is much the same as the full edition).
Around about VS version 2010, they USED to have a smaller built in web server as part of VS. The problem of course was for Microsoft to maintain 100% compatibility was VERY hard. So while for a considerable time frame and history of VS? Yes, they had a built in web server as part of VS. But they dropped it a number of versions ago in VS, and as noted now use IIS express.
So Now? Well, when you install VS, they also install a working copy of IIS. (the express version). The express version is quite much the same as the full pop edition of IIS. What is removed is "most" if not "all" of the IIS management screens and setup. (and sometimes I wish they would just install that part too!).
Your experience thus that a copy of IIS is launched. Once launched IIS does keep running during your development process (depends on your VS config and setup). But, if you go file->close solution, then you find that IIS express then also shuts down.
So, to view that web page? Yes, VS does config, and then does spool up and start internet services and that web server. So this running of IIS on your computer is what allows those web pages to work and run correctly. As noted, while this is a copy of IIS, it is for the most part the same as the full edition - just with most of the management tools removed. As noted, you SHOULD see that new icon appear in the system tray.
And as noted, I believe around VS 2010, they made that switch from the VS built in IIS to that of now using IIS express edition. As noted, this change was made to ensure a greater probability that when coding and debugging your web site in VS, that the end result will be much the same when running a full edition.
I do find that over time, the production (web hosted site) does get so many config and tweaks and changes, that I now can't include my web.config file in the publish (can't risk overwriting the server production web.config). So, over time, we added things like https security certificates and installed them, and set them up for the production web site. I don't have those same security certificates setup on my local machine. And of course there are some virtual folders and few more things that exist on the production web site as opposed to the dev copy I use. So, it somewhat my fault to let the production web.config over time to become "different" then what I run local when coding and debugging the web site. So now, when I publish - I remove the web.config file before I actually copy the new updated web application to the final production server (which of course is running the full edition of IIS).
But to make a long story short?
Yes, a whole copy of IIS web server is configured for you, and that whole copy of IIS is spooled up, launched, and once that occurs, then your web page option "view in browser" can run. But make no mistake here - IIS services is setup, is started, and is running for that web page preview to occur.
When I try to debug my VS2010 web app (F5), the IE web browser windows pops up but then freezes, and my VS2010 IDE window pops up an error message:
Unable to start program 'http://localhost:nnnn/Login.aspx'.
Access is denied.
I'm running VS2010 (10.0.30319.1), targeted to ASP.NET 4.0 (4.0.30319), in non-administrator mode, with ASP.NET debugging enabled, on 64-bit Windows 7 Enterprise SP1, with IE 9 (9.0.8112.16421 with update 9.0.29).
This web app and others I work with have been working just fine for several months, but they all started to misbehave in this manner a few weeks ago. At first, the first time I tried to debug (F5) I'd get the error, but after clearing it and closing the IE window and trying F5 again a second time, the browser would come up just fine. I assumed it was just some glitch, so I tolerated it.
Lately, though it has gotten worse, to the point that 90% of my attempts and re-attempts to debug the web app cause a hung browser and the error. It sometimes works, but most times it doesn't. I have to kill the handing iexplorer.exe processes to clean up my user space, otherwise I eventually get a message about not having enough files to start the browser. I try rebuilding, stopping the ASP.NET Development Server process, even exiting VS2010 and restarting it, but I can't seem to find the magic sequence of events to get it to work.
If I start without debug (Shift-F5), it works, but two IE web browser windows are opened, and both attach to the web app. I don't know if this is related to the first problem. And needless to say, this does not really allow me to debug my code. I tried attaching to either of the IE processes, but I still could not get the debugger to actually debug the executing app. (There is a message about no symbols being loaded for the attached process.)
Most of the solutions for this problem I've found say something about running with administrator access. I cannot do this, however; I work at a large financial company, and developers are not allowed to have local admin rights on our PCs. I don't control system patches, but I can request Help Desk ticket to resolve the problem; but I'd like to resolve this problem myself if it is a fairly simple configuration problem on my part.
Addendum
I should also add that I am not using IIS (because I don't have it installed on my system, and I can't use it anyway because I don't have local admin rights), but instead I am using the built-in Visual Studio Development Server. I've also selected a specific HTTP port number for it to use. Also, all of the directories I'm been using were created by me (as part of my project workspace), so there should be no access permission problems.
Like I said, I can sometimes get a debugging web session started, but most of the time I can't. So whatever is causing this problem, it is probably something intermittent.
This tend to occur when you try to run the full version of IIS rather than the Visual Studio Web Server or IIS Express. Have you tried running IIS Express instead? I think there's support for IIS Express that came with one of the later updates to VS 2010?
IIS proper definitely requires full admin rights in order to attach a debugger because full IIS runs under a system account rather than your own account. IIS Express (as well as the Visual Studio Web Server) however should run under your own user account and so debugging should work on the local machine even with a non-admin account.
One issue that might cause problems is directory permissions. Make sure that the folder where your Web files live are read/execute accessible through the file system for your user account.
Finally make sure you don't have some other instance of a Web service running on the same HTTP port.
I am having the same issue, it works when i don't choose to debug but CTRL+F5 to start it. F5 Debugger al
Basically we have this aspx script generated by another company, which we need to run, we normally just use coldfusion, for our company.
However this app is an aspx.
We have both a development and production server, it works flawlessly on our dev server, but it fails to work at all in the production server.
It uses a javascript function called _doPostBack.
I have compared the aspx files on dev/prod line by line, and they are 100% identical.
So I need some ideas what iis7 setting to change to allow this to work. Since we didn't do anything special to make it work on our development server.
Our Prodution server is sql2008, iis7, win 2008 i believe.
Our Development server is sql 2005 express, iis7, vista business edition.
Any suggestions or tips we can do?
And in firebug it generates no javascript errors of any code, but the navigation links do nothing.
The page itself displays, on the left is a list of links, which if clicked on, should change the content on the right/main content area.
This works fine on dev, it doesn't work at all on production. It does display the page, show's no javascript errors, but the navigation links do not work.
There is no external javascript file, so it must be something in iis.
Thanks
I would consider reinstalling asp.net on the box that isn't working. Can be done from command line using aspnet_regiis -i
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k6h9cz8h.aspx
Other than that I have no idea. Sounds like a config issue to me though..
In the IIS settings, make sure the ASP.NET System Services is running and verify that ASP.NET exists in the Role Services. Also check the Application Pools and in the Advanced Settings, you can check the .Net framework version.
What happens if you try to acccess a page you create called test.aspx with plain text?
You can try running the page locally on the production server, sometimes things will work locally but not remotely if it's an IIS issue.
Have you verified that the appropriate .Net framework is installed on the machine and that the page resides in an application in IIS?
Using IE8, press F12 to bring up the developer tools. Inside the tools you can examine the various scripts that are (or will be) running, and start debugging. Start the debugger and set a breakpoint where the _doPostBack function is being called (or inside the function itself) and see what is actually happening.
Also, you may want to fire up Fiddler2 and compare the HTTP requests between your development and production servers. It is entirely possible that something else isn't returning as expected (like a call to WebResource.axd) in production that works fine in dev.
HTTP 404. The resource you are looking for (or one of its dependencies) could have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please review the following URL and make sure that it is spelled correctly.
Requested URL: /webctrl_client/1_0/treeimages/Rminus.gif
I had this problem for a simple reason. Make sure you compile your site before deploying it. I had some pages that were compiled and some pages that were not compiled. And because I was testing on a Windows Server 2008 box, not a Windows 7 box.
It took me so long to figure out because when I tried viewing these pages on the application server (Windows Server 2008), it wouldn't let me view a non secure page (http protocol), because of Internet Explorer's security settings. I only had a binding for port 80 when testing on a browser on the server box. So I couldn't even see the aspx page that was compiled, let alone the aspx pages that were not compiled. A plain HTML page was visible on both boxes however, on the same site--that part was interesting. So that told me IIS was running fine. When I viewed the pages on another machine (running Windows 7) on that network, the compiled aspx page showed up fine because it was compiled. And the non-compiled pages did not.
Here are other possible issues:
(use correct version of .NET framework for commands below)
1.) Have you installed the .NET framework?
2.) Make sure ASP.NET 4.0 is registered. Run these commands to verify.
"%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe" -lv
"%systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe" list apppool /managedRuntimeVersion:v4.0
"%systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe" list config -section:system.webServer/isapiFilters
If not, run this:
"%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis" -i -enable
3.) Make sure the ISAPI filters are turned on for the version you are using. Click server (not the site) in IIS 7. Then go to "Isapi Filters". Allow the ones you need.
4.) Make sure your application pool is running in the version of your compiled source code of your ASP.NET pages. Go to Application Pools in IIS, then right click the application pool for your site, and choose Advanced. Change the version to either 2.0 or 4.0. Make sure it's also 32 bit if you compiled your app as 32 bit.
... when reading forums those are the 4 solutions I came across most frequently. Mine was a bit simple, but confused me for hours because I hadn't installed the SSL certificate yet.
I am developing a remote control application where a client (aspx page in a browser) can request a server to "launch a notepad" (for testing purpose, for real life, turning off a light bulb, etc). So I created a dll with a simple function for launching the notepad (on the server side) and dropped this dll in the root bin folder.
It worked fine when the aspx page is running under ASP.NET development server (launched from Visual Studio). But when I tested the same aspx page under a FireFox browser, it did not work (launch the notepad) even though it did call for the same function (I stepped through in debugger).
Is this a permission issue? How do I set this up in IIS manager, or even better in web.config?
Please help.
Yes, it sounds like a permission issue.
The application pool in IIS 7 that your site is running under is probably using the default identity, which is the most restrictive. You can change the identity in IIS Manager by right-clicking on the app pool (probably called DefaultAppPool) and selecting Advanced Settings. From there change the Identity value to Local Service or Network Service. If neither of those work, making it Local System should allow your page to work.
I assume the Visual Studio integrated web server runs under the context of the account you are logged in with on the machine, which likely has a lot more rights.
When you say:
it did not work (launch the notepad)
Did you mean it through an exception or you didn't see a notepad window open. If it was a permissions issue I would expect you that you would get an exception. Chris is right on when he says:
The application pool in IIS 7 that
your site is running under is probably
using the default identity, which is
the most restrictive.
and
I assume the Visual Studio integrated
web server runs under the context of
the account you are logged in with on
the machine, which likely has a lot
more rights.
and if this is a permissions issue he is right on. However, the user your running under (when not debugging in Visual Studio) most likely cannot access the desktop of the logged in user. Maybe you should try your test with an app that doesn't need to interact with the desktop.