Cannot run Simple ASP.NET MVC Application with Visual Studio 2015 from IIS (Internal Server 500)

12
votes
  • Windows 10 Professional
  • IIS 10
  • Visual Studio 2015 (Running as Administrator)

I want to run from IIS instead of IIS Express as I have an external IP pointing to my machine and I will be receiving messages from an external source. Ultimately I will be using WebAPI but for testing and setting up IIS I am using a simple ASP.NET MVC 5 Web Application.

I created a new ASP.NET MVC 5 Web Application, this is the skeleton Visual Studio 2015 MVC Template, I then ran the application using IIS Express, no issues:

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I then went to IIS 10 and created a new website with "localhost" as the binding:

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The Physical Path for this new website in IIS is C:\inetpub\wwwroot\AspNetMvcTest:

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I then went to the web application properties and switched to IIS. I was asked if I would like to create a new Virtual Directory:

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I clicked Yes, if you click No the operation will be canceled and you unsaved Web Application Properties. You have to click Yes to change to Local IIS Property in Visual Studio.

I then was told that IIS "localhost" was mapped to a different folder and would I like to remap:

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I clicked Yes. If you click No you will have unsaved Web Application Property changes again and you will not be using Local IIS in Visual Studio.

This is interesting Visual Studio is trying to change the "Virtual Directory" because it will actual change the Physical Path of the IIS Website not add a Virtual Directory. A Virtual Directory is a folder, somewhere outside of the Physical Path of the IIS website that IIS will treat as is part of the Physical Path folder. But I digress.

Now I am told that the "Virtual Directory" was created successfully:

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Now we can look at the changes Visual Studio 2015 made to IIS 10:

We have no Virtual Directories on the website bound to localhost:

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My Physical Path has been changed by Visual Studio 2015 and it is mapped to my the directory my simple ASP.NET MVC 5 Web Application resides:

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So even though Visual Studio 2015 uses the "Virtual Directory" when changing the ASP.NET MVC 5 Web Application Properties, Visual Studio 2015 was only concerned with the Physical Path and that is the only thing it changed in IIS that I can see.

Now for the Internal Server Error 500 Details

I press F5 in Visual Studio 2015 and F12 Tools says there is an Internal Server 500 Error:

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If we inspect the request and response in Fiddler, there 500 Error has a Content Length = 0

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To try and get more details of the 500 error I have turned Custom Errors off in my Web.Config and also added httpErrors Detailed and PassThrough:

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I added "catch all" exceptions handling to Global.asax, no breakpoint hitenter image description here:

Here is my Call Stack, which is empty and neither breakpoint in screenshot is ever hit:

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I added a Console Application to my solution as "Set As Startup Project" and here is my Call Stack proving a break point can be hit:

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Here is a screenshot of Event Viewer -> Application, I cleared the Application log, pressed F5 in Visual Studio 2015, refreshed the Application log and it is empty still:

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I thought the issue is folder permissions after Visual Studio changed the Physical Path

So I added IIS_IUSRS and gave Full Control even though the Account does not need that high of a level of permission to the Physical Path directory:

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My ApplicationPoolIndentity is Framework v4.0 and ApplicationPoolIdentity The ApplicationPoolIdentity is assigned membership of the Users group as well as the IIS_IUSRS group:

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I tried adding the specific Application Pool to the Security properties of ASP.NET MVC app Physical Directory, so first I found the process Visual Studio F5 was attached to:

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I added "DefaultAppPool" and my IIS Application Pool "IIS APPPOOL\AspNetMvcTest" to the Physical folder Security.

I added index.html to the Web Application Physical Folder and that does not work:

<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<h4 style="color: black">hello world</h4>
</body>
</html>

I have moved the IIS website Physical Path to inetpub/wwwroot back to the directory I created when I created the website, I cannot even browse to a simple HTML file, I get the same empty 500 error

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So now I am stuck and do not know what else to do.

2
c#asp.netasp.net-mvcvisual-studioiis
wow for the detail but you dnt include why you are getting the 500 please include the page which includes the detail as to why your getting the 500.TextView tab in the one of your screen shots... if your wondering what im on about. – Seabizkit
There is no detail, the Internal Server 500 error has a content length of 0 see the Fiddler screen shot – Brian Ogden
ish true... sorry missed that now your really got my attention. Include the stack trace. I take it you have tried running it.... and get the exception... what is the message and the inner exception if there is one. – Seabizkit
At least with your last update we know that regular *.html files are also not served. This means that this is not an MVC issue but rather something wrong with your IIS. – Wiktor Zychla
Thanks for all the help everyone, I added my solution as an answer, it was that IIS was not properly installed because index.html nor did an IIS website with Physical Path to c:\inpub\wwwroot even work. So IIS was not installed properly, I didn't select all the right features. If IIS had been installed properly me ASP.NET MVC Web APP would not have worked and I just needed to run aspnet_regiis to fix that – Brian Ogden

2 Answers

7
votes

TL;DR

Before reading the rest of answer it is likely you just need to run aspnet_regiis which you can do from cmd or via a cool tool in Web Platform Installer, if you search "ASP.NET" there is a handy "Execute ASP.NET IIS Registration tool" you can install.

Original Answer:

Thanks for all the help from everyone, first thing I should have done was taken a step back and tested an index.html "Hello World" test file from a IIS Website with c:\inetpub\wwwroot as the Physical Path of the IIS website.

When you first install IIS you have a default website, browse to it and make sure that works. Is a great first start to a new machine. But I just deleted that IIS site after installing IIS

Steps I took for fix:

  1. I uninstalled IIS via Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Windows Features.
  2. Restarted my computer
  3. Installed IIS for Windows 10 following this document
  4. Tested IIS by creating a Website, using the DefaultAppPool and then browsing localhost, and that worked (again when you first install IIS you have this website but I deleted it on mine a couple days ago)
  5. I Found that my simple ASP.NET Website still did not work though and it was published to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\AspNetMvcTest so it was not a potential folders permission issue. When browsing, instead of loading my ASP.NET Website IIS redirected to the root c:\inetpub\wwwroot and displayed its IIS Welcome page ("iisstart.htm")
  6. This means I needed to run aspnet_regiis, which I did, via cool tool in Web Platform Installer, if you search "ASP.NET" there is a handy "Execute ASP.NET IIS Registration tool" you can install.
  7. That was it, I was all set, ASP.NET MVC Website started working from IIS immediately upon refreshing my browser (localhost in Location bar).

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0
votes

I think the main problem is that ASP.NET MVC 5 web requires .NET Framework 4.5 at least. From your provided information, the application pool of your web application was using .NET 4.0. It look like you've not registerd ASP.NET 4.5 with your IIS yet.

To register ASP.NET 4.5 with IIS, you could use using Visual Studio's command prompt (as an Administrator), go to the following directory and run the commmand aspnet_regiis.exe -i

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.5.<version>

After successfully register ASP.NET 4.5 with IIS, change your web application to use .NET 4.5 application pool.