Unable to launch the IIS Express Web server, Faile

Question

Some web projects are causing me problems while others work fine. I decided to focus on one of the problematic ones. I'm using Visual Studio 2013 on Windows 7. I think I'm running it as administrator, the window title says PROJECT NAME - Microsoft Visual Studio (Administrator).

When I try to run the project I get a popup saying:

Unable to launch the IIS Express Web server.

Failed to register URL "http://localhost:62940/" for site "SITE NAME"
application "/". Error description: Access is denied. (0x80070005).

This does not seem entirely uncommon but I have tried many of the suggestions without luck:

1. Deleted %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\, tried to run.

2. netsh http add urlacl url=http://localhost:62940/ user=everyone, rebooted and tried to run. (Actually user=Alla since Swedish Windows).

3. netsh http delete urlacl url=http://localhost:62940/, rebooted and changed from <binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:62940:localhost /> to <binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:62940:/> in %userprofile%\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config and tried to run. (It did changed the error message to say ... URL "http://*:62940/" ....

4. Reinstalled IIS 8.0 Express

5. Reinstalled Visual Studio 2013

I'm at my wit's end, what am I doing wrong?

Edit 1: If I change the port of the project (e.g. to 55555) it starts... This is not a desirable solution since these projects are worked on by several people. Maybe the port is blocked by something else? If so, is there an easy way to check by what?

Edit 2: Port 62940 seems to be free. Running netstat does not show any application listening to it. Something else must be wrong.

Edit 3: I tried starting the project today after not touching it for a few months. It worked but I don't know why.

Answer 1

try (as elevated administrator)

netsh http delete urlacl url=http://*:62940/

Answer 2

After trying a number of suggested solutions without success I just rebooted my PC. After that the problem didn't occur anymore.

Answer 3

Looks like everybody has own problem Just sharing what I did to fix this problem in VS2015 (Windows 8.1), my solution has 6 web sites (not web apps)

1. Open your solution file *.sln
2. Change in your solution file string VWDPort = "34781" (make it unique in your solution if you have more that 1 web site, I made +2) in notepad.

See sample solution file ProjectSection(WebsiteProperties):

Project("{E24C65DC-7377-472B-9ABA-BC803B73C61A}") = "BOSTONBEANCOFFEE.COM", "Source_WebOfficeV4\BOSTONBEANCOFFEE.COM", "{5106A8F5-401B-4907-981C-F37784DC4E9D}"
ProjectSection(WebsiteProperties) = preProject
    SccProjectName = ""$/PrismRMSystem/VS2012/WebOfficeV4.root/WebOfficeV4", IPYHAAAA"
    SccAuxPath = ""
    SccLocalPath = "..\.."
    SccProvider = "MSSCCI:Microsoft Visual SourceSafe"
    TargetFrameworkMoniker = ".NETFramework,Version%3Dv4.0"
    ProjectReferences = "{04e527c3-bac6-4082-9d39-aad8771b368e}|YBTools.dll;{5d52eaec-42fb-4313-83b8-69e2f55ebf14}|AuthorizeNet.dll;{d8408f53-8f1e-4a71-8b05-76023b09b716}|AuthorizeNet.Helpers.dll;{77ebd08a-de0f-4793-b436-fad6980863e6}|WEBCUSTCONTROLS.dll;"
    Debug.AspNetCompiler.VirtualPath = "/BOSTONBEANCOFFEE.COM"
    Debug.AspNetCompiler.PhysicalPath = "Source_WebOfficeV4\BOSTONBEANCOFFEE.COM\"
    Debug.AspNetCompiler.TargetPath = "PrecompiledWeb\BOSTONBEANCOFFEE.COM\"
    Debug.AspNetCompiler.Updateable = "true"
    Debug.AspNetCompiler.ForceOverwrite = "true"
    Debug.AspNetCompiler.KeyFile = "Key\StrongKey.snk"
    Debug.AspNetCompiler.DelaySign = "false"
    Debug.AspNetCompiler.AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers = "false"
    Debug.AspNetCompiler.FixedNames = "true"
    Debug.AspNetCompiler.Debug = "True"
    Release.AspNetCompiler.VirtualPath = "/BOSTONBEANCOFFEE.COM"
    Release.AspNetCompiler.PhysicalPath = "Source_WebOfficeV4\BOSTONBEANCOFFEE.COM\"
    Release.AspNetCompiler.TargetPath = "PrecompiledWeb\BOSTONBEANCOFFEE.COM\"
    Release.AspNetCompiler.Updateable = "true"
    Release.AspNetCompiler.ForceOverwrite = "true"
    Release.AspNetCompiler.KeyFile = "Key\StrongKey.snk"
    Release.AspNetCompiler.DelaySign = "false"
    Release.AspNetCompiler.AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers = "false"
    Release.AspNetCompiler.FixedNames = "true"
    Release.AspNetCompiler.Debug = "False"      
    VWDPort = "34781"
    SlnRelativePath = "Source_WebOfficeV4\BOSTONBEANCOFFEE.COM\"
EndProjectSection

In my case, I tried to change URL from project properties, restart VS, reboot computer, nothing helped me only this SLN file manipulation fixed my problem.

Answer 4

I solved this issue by killing all instances of iexplorer and iexplorer*32. It looks like Internet Explorer was still in memory holding the port open even though the application window was closed.

Answer 5

Got this error as well lately. Tried all the above fixes, but none worked.

To disable it, type services.msc in command prompt, then right click and disable Internet Connection Sharing. I edited the properties of it as well to disable at startup. Mine looks like so now: services capture screenshot.

Answer 6

If you're having this after installing Visual Studio 2015 and you can see Error messages in System event log such as this: Unable to bind to the underlying transport for [::]:{your_port}. . The IP Listen-Only list may contain a reference ... then you might be missing a registry entry.

Run this under administrative command prompt: netsh http add iplisten ipaddress=:: to fix it.

I found the solution described in detail here