IISExpress 8 Cannot read configuration file redirection.config

Question

I'm running Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64) with IISExpress8 and when navigating to

c:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express>iisexpress.exe

it says:

Filename: redirection.config

Error: Cannot read configuration file

Any ideas where to start? I can't find anything...

Answer 1

I had a similar issue to @Myles J but renaming %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config didn't work. What I had to do was the following:

1. Close Visual Studio.
2. Rename the %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config directory.
3. Start Visual Studio again. The %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config directory will be recreated with the default config files.
4. Copy the original applicationhost.config file over the autogenerated one.

Before anyone asks: the permissions on the folders were identical, the read-only flag was not set on the folder or its files, and I didn't modify applicationhost.config in any way.

Answer 2

After installing IIS Express, copy all files from

C:\Program Files\IIS Express\config\templates\PersonalWebServer

to

%userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config

Answer 3

Right click on your project file and Edit the project file and remove the URL from IISUrl and reload your project then it will work

Answer 4

I have just resolved this. It is a strange solution but it worked for me. Here are the steps I took:

Navigate to the folder containing the local IISExpress config files (normally My Documents>IISExpress>config on Windows7).

Find the applicationhost.config file. Rename it to something different e.g. applicationhost2.config.

Navigate to your web project in Visual Studio (I was using VS 2012). Right click on the web project and select Use IISExpress. Run the project. It should fail due to the renaming of the config file.

Change the name of the configuration file back to application.config. Ensure "Use Local IIS Web Server" is selected in the web project settings. Run the solution.

This worked for me.

Answer 5

I have the exact same issue with Visual Studio 2013 on Windows 8.1 I map My Documents folder to SkyDrive, so the IISExpress folder was marked as "Online-only". Once I marked it as "Available offline" everything worked.

Answer 6

If you do:

C:\Users\”username*****”\Documents\IISExpress\config

You find these file

applicationhost.config
aspnet.config
redirection.config

Delete above 3 file and then open the project.then the problem is solved. I tried, its working fine.

Answer 7

In some situations simply renaming/deleting the applicationhost.config file isn't enough since VS won't always recreate it for you. I believe the following will fix it under all circumstances:

Close Visual Studio.

Make sure there are no IIS Express processes running, then delete C:\Users\XXXX\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config (where XXXX is your Windows username).

On command line, execute c:\Program Files\IIS Express\iisexpress.exe. This will recreate the necessary configs. Press 'Q' straight away to end the process.

Open Visual Studio again and Start/Debug your web project. Everything should now be working.

Answer 8

Backup files at local IISExpress folder. It can be found at: C:\Users\”username*****”\Documents\IISExpress\config
Go to the location:
C:\Program Files\IIS Express\config\templates\PersonalWebServer
Copy the required files from this directory to the local IISExpress folder.
It worked for me after I copied over the files:
applicationhost.config
aspnet.config
redirection.config

Answer 9

In my case the 'My documents' folder for my work laptop was mapped to a network share. So when the work network was not available I was not able to open my solution.

Change: These will have the value of my docs in network share. Change this to local

I. Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Personal

II. Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal

For eg:

Old value: \networkdrive\c$\Users\profile\Documents

New value: C:\Users\profile\Documents

See: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/chiranth/2015/04/01/error-while-runningstarting-a-website-under-iisexpress-in-visual-studio/

Answer 10

The issue is that the files in C:\Users\"Your Username"\Documents\IISExpress\config are encrypted. Open this folder, Select all the files, Right click and select properties, Click advanced, deselect "Encrypt contents to secure data, Click okay, click apply.

That will fix it.

Answer 11

Visual Studio will only report the filename it looks for, not the full path. The problem for many users is that the IISExpress with the redirection.config can exist in multiple paths, including a OneDrive path which may not be synced.

To figure out exactly what file Visual Studio attempts to open, use the Microsoft (SysInternals) tool ProcMon. It lists all files and resources Windows tries to access. Add a filter for "Path contains redirection.config" and reproduce the problem in Visual Studio. Now you will see the actual path it tries to use.

In my case, I have multiple IISExpress folders. One that was synced to OneDrive and another one that was local. Visual Studio tried to access the OneDrive folder which was not synced to the local disk, and thus it failed.

Answer 12

Using Visual Studio 2013

I had to stop visual studio rename the whole config directory, Documents > IISExpress> Config then start a new web project, which fails but it recreates the config directory, then I rebooted and launched visual studio and everything worked!

I noticed this problem after copying a project between 2 computers, perhaps it was caused by a duplicate IISExpress port or something trivial.

Answer 13

Using VS2013 / Windows 7

Close solution. Open Windows Explorer and right-click on "My Documents\IISExpress\config" directory and select "Decrypt". Be sure "Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files" is selected. Reopen VS solution.

Answer 14

In my case it happened when IISExpress was still active from a previous VS session and new instance of VS was run.

The solution was to stop (or kill) IIS Express instance.

Answer 15

Fix was really simple for me >> Restart Visual Studio

My setup:

• Visual Studio 2015

• Web projects use local IIS 8.5

• I occasionally experience what I believe to be a VS bug where it converts some projects to use IISExpress (this is fixed by deleting the folder created in /This PC/Documents). This might be related.

Answer 16

You don't need to close Visual Studio or rename anything.

1. Open properties for %userprofile%\Documents
2. Select Security > Advanced, change owner to yourself (again if you are already owner).
3. Select "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" and "Replace all child object permission entires with inherited permission entires from this object".
4. Ok.

Answer 17

For me, It's a simple lack of permission either give everyone permission to "%userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config" this folder or Open VS in Admin mode

Answer 18

After trying to solve an issue with a quick fix of changing IIS express inside visual studio from integrated to classic pipeline , I ended up not being able to use IIS express at all. I tried all techniques above...

I could not rename , copy the file. Uninstall of IIS express and re-install did not work.

I FINALLY downloaded the latest version of WebMatrix and installed IIS express 8, that did not work, but at least then i was able to finally delete the old directory and then I recreated itself.....

NOT FUN AT ALL.

Answer 19

I resolved this (with vs2013 and windows 7) by going to Documents > IISExpress> Config and renaming the application.config. After that, I restarted visual studio and opened my project and it worked.

Answer 20

I ran into this issue while trying to open another developer's solution after installing VS2013 (Update 3 RC). After following the advice here and deleting/renaming/etc. the config folder, VS re-created the files in the wrong location. It created nested config folders:

C:\Users[user]\Documents\IISExpress\config\config

I moved everything from ...\config\config into ...\config, and it worked as expected.

Answer 21

I found that deleting one of the sites from the applicationhost.config file resolve this problem for me.

I used the following command from the %ProgramFiles(x86)%\IISExpress directory:

appcmd list site

then

appcmd delete site rogueSiteName

Especially there was a site name with a bracketed number suffix (e.g. "MySite(1)") that I deleted. I'm not sure yet if VS2013 just had an issue with the brackets or that two sites pointed to the same directory. Either way deleting it made VS happy again.

Background

I had been struggling with this issue for a couple of days and nothing seemed to help - not even the instructions given in the top answers here.

I had also tried moving the config folder as mentioned in http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/introduction-to-iis-express/iis-80-express-readme. But although VS2013 recreated the directory structure and files in the new location the errors continued and running appcmd showed that it was still pointing at the old location by default.

Credits

Credit for where I found the commands to use goes to http://gyorgybalassy.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/cleaning-up-iis-express-configuration/

Answer 22

For ASP.Net Core just access your Properties section, then make a modification and save it.

Example: I modified the SSL port

You will get a notification that your launchsettings.json was modified. Accept that and you're good to go.

Answer 23

If it is ASP.NET Core project

Just try to change iis port in file launchSettings.json by path iisSettings:iisExpress:applicationUrl

Answer 24

It's 2020, I am reporting the same problem in Visual Studio 2019.

Cause: Multiple VS instances open with different web app (Blazor in my instance).

Solution: Close all VS instances and re-open the solution that you want to run.

Answer 25

On IIS 10 Express. Make sure that Visual Studio (VS) is turned off.

I first found out that %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\ was not working.

I first thought IIS Express had clashed with IIS from the windows OS.

I uninstalled it, yet no changes, then I uninstalled IIS 10 Express that was installed with VS 2019 through the control panel.

Then I went ahead to discover that this file is saved at the C:\Users\username\OneDrive\Documents\IISExpress, associated with one drive storage, so I advise you copy %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\ and paste in your windows explorer navigation to find directory.

go to one directory higher, and/or rename the config folder. Restart your VS and run the project again.

Answer 26

for me was removing the file Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config

Closing visual studio > Open > Debug

Thanks for the previous answer help go straight to the issue

Answer 27

Mine was caused by OneDrive. Apparently my documents folder is being synced to it. What I did is changed the location of the documents folder through regedit and navigated to this path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer > User Shell Folders

and then changed the value of Personal from: C:\Users\my username\OneDrive\Documents to C:\Users\my username\Documents

After that I restart my computer and I was able to create a VS project.