Windows 8.1 / Windows 10 breaks my ASP.NET / IIS : "Service unavailable"

Question

With Windows 8.1 finally released to MSDN/Technet today I came across the following issue running my ASP.NET application after doing an in place upgrade with Win 8.1 RTM:

Service Unavailable

HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

The AppPool has died and shows a status of Stopped
The IIS log has nothing
There's a clue is in the Windows Application log which contains this error

The Module DLL C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\rewrite.dll failed to load. The data is the error.

How can I recover my IIS to make it work again?

The `System` Event Log shows an error related to the one in the `Application` log: `A listener channel for protocol 'http' in worker process '####' serving application pool 'MyAppPool' reported a listener channel failure. The data field contains the error number.` @Simon_Weaver has the correct answer. — subsci, Apr 03 '14 at 06:22
It's worth noting that this also happens when upgrading from Win 7 to Win 10. @simon-weaver 's own answer is still correct :) — James McCormack, Dec 14 '15 at 10:44

Simon_Weaver · Answer 1 · 2016-08-31T05:54:53.273

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It looks like a simple uninstall and re-install of the rewrite module will do the trick.

Edit: As others have said - try a repair first - if it works then that should be faster.

It doesn't look like the Microsoft Web Platform Installer is able to uninstall it so just go to Programs and Features to uninstall it.

You'll find it listed as IIS URL Rewrite Module 2 and just click the Uninstall button on top.

Then reinstall it from here:

http://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite

Make sure your App Pool is started - or just restart IIS and it should all work again.

Edit: 8/30/16 : A similar but unrelated error can occur if you have the 'new' .NET core installed and update to Win 10 Anniversary edition. See here: https://github.com/aspnet/Home/issues/1583 - Running a repair on VS 2015 Tooling Preview should fix it. Wanted to add it here since the errors are very similar to this answer.

edited Aug 31 '16 at 05:54

answered Sep 10 '13 at 09:15

Simon_Weaver

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I realize Windows 8.1 has a new IIS 8.5, but if anyone knows specifically why this fails I'd be interested to know. This is pretty much the only extension I am aware that I'm using so I don't know if this is specific to the rewrite module or any modules. – Simon_Weaver Sep 10 '13 at 09:16
@blake you got this error specifically when upgrading to Windows 8.1? I've had it before when I did a new install of Windows and just forgotten to install this module. I assume since IIS 8.5 is a new version it just wipes everything out including extensions (or modules or whatever this is). Fortunately nothing else seems off in my upgrade and all my other IIS settings were retained – Simon_Weaver Sep 10 '13 at 19:31
Yes, I did an upgrade to 8.1 that whipped out all my apps :\. – Blake Niemyjski Oct 03 '13 at 17:09
I'm running Windows 8.1 When I uninstalled the module my app actually started working. – Edward Olamisan Feb 06 '14 at 16:52
You can verify in the Event Log: you will see `The Module DLL C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\rewrite.dll failed to load. The data is the error.` – subsci Apr 03 '14 at 06:15
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Uninstaller was unavailable, had to manually delete this registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\IIS Extensions\URL Rewrite – Andrea Balducci Oct 23 '14 at 10:23
Uninstalling and reinstalling URL Rewrite worked for me as well on **Windows 10**. Not sure _why_ tho... – sǝɯɐſ Aug 05 '15 at 18:59
I just install latest version of IIS URL Rewrite Module 2. Don't need to uninstall anything. – Mike Keskinov Aug 19 '15 at 20:46
Upgrading from Win 8.1 to Win 10 caused this issue for me, and reinstalling solved it. Thing I noted on the WPI is that URL Rewrite, though it's still v2.0, has a newer release date of 5/27/2015. Perhaps for some reason this is why there was a compatibility issue, @Simon_Weaver. – Todd Sprang Dec 01 '15 at 15:00
This error suddenly happened to me overnight on an otherwise perfectly working Windows 10 machine, and this fix worked perfectly, thanks. – Whelkaholism Dec 14 '15 at 14:06

score 53 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 28 '15 at 11:18

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I got this Event Log error after updating Win8.1 to Win10. To fix, go to the Control Panel -> Programs and Features, locate IIS URL Rewrite Module 2, right click and select Repair (it's quick). Next, restart your stopped AppPool(s). Should be OK now.

No need to uninstall nor reinstall.

Gary Davis

edited Aug 28 '15 at 11:18

Whelkaholism

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answered Aug 24 '15 at 16:00

GarDavis

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I just got this on upgrading to Windows 10 and this worked for me. – Whelkaholism Aug 28 '15 at 10:47
Upgrading from Windows 2008 -> 2008 R2 (don't ask, didn't want to), same problem, same solution. – StrangeWill Oct 11 '15 at 02:36
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I just had the same issue after a regular Windows Update (so strange). This solution fixed it for me. – infl3x May 03 '16 at 02:11

score 26 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 18 '13 at 03:09

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Don't need to uninstall. Just do a Repair instead, and it will works.

answered Oct 18 '13 at 03:09

Jimmy Soh

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Thanks for sharing, though this didn't work for me. The uninstall/re-install method did work for me though. – Jeroen Oct 22 '13 at 08:27
Simple repair worked for me. This was after a Windows Update, in case someone is wondering. – John Gietzen Jan 20 '16 at 19:30

score 13 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 02 '18 at 10:41

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For some weird reasons, the only solution for me was to install previous version of the module, from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7435

answered Nov 02 '18 at 10:41

Kevin Dimey

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for Windows Server 2012 r2 out of the box for demo/test - this was the trick that worked. rewrite 2.1 simply would not work – MikeJ Jan 13 '19 at 18:10
This did the trick for me. No reinstall, no repair but simply a downgrade to 2.0 with the link you provided. Good job! – Herve Mutombo May 14 '19 at 21:22
Does anyone have the installer for rewrite 2.0 version? The direct link provided by @kevin is already broken.. – Blurzschyter Jul 25 '22 at 01:50

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 01 '14 at 03:09

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I just ran in to this issue after an update. All of the app pools where stopped! Starting them resolved the issue.

answered Mar 01 '14 at 03:09

Chad Carisch

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score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 18 '17 at 07:45

I struggled with similar issues last night.

It started out with a complaint about missing redirect.dll. After installing IIS' Redirect feature, that log message disappeared and all I was left with was a bunch of error messages from WAS. It tried starting my application pool five times until giving up.

A listener channel for protocol 'http' in worker process '120' serving application pool 'my app pool' reported a listener channel failure. The data field contains the error number.

The error code was "8007007E" (File not found according to google).

I then installed ProcMon from sysinternals.com and every time the w3wp process complained about "NAME NOT FOUND" right before terminating, I googled and installed the corresponding IIS feature. I repeated this until I had installed them all and got everything working again.

Installing everything is not a good solution, but I do not have time to investigate deeper right now.

I took the lead from your answer and ticked "HTTP Redirection" under Common HTTP Features. That fixed it. I also had enabled asp.net 3.5 and the 3.5 .net extensibility but I think it's the redirection one that did it. This was after windows must have uninstalled IIS for me and it's been a pain to set it all up again. — Action Dan, Aug 13 '17 at 05:04

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 06 '13 at 10:06

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I came across similar symptoms after changing my domain password. I had to also reset my password in my (hard coded!) App Pool settings on my dev box.

answered Dec 06 '13 at 10:06

Dave Mateer

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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 23 '16 at 07:43

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I had a similar issue with "httpplatformhandler.dll failed to load". Again the solution was to download the appropriate httpplatformhandler install msi from http://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/httpplatformhandler and then run a repair.

answered Sep 23 '16 at 07:43

Stuart

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 03 '16 at 06:37

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The Repair worked for me after updating to W10 Insider Preview 160826-1902

answered Sep 03 '16 at 06:37

Marco Duindam

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jun 11 '19 at 07:36

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I encountered the same problem in Windows Server 2012 R2. After I update Windows Updates to newest, it works.

answered Jun 11 '19 at 07:36

Steven Chou

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Windows 8.1 / Windows 10 breaks my ASP.NET / IIS : "Service unavailable"

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