Aug 15 2008

When IIS Wont Start – Error 13

Published by at 8:00 pm under Programming

This morning I ran into a problem when running a repair on my broken SharePoint installation.  Everything seemed to be going well until the setup needed to restart the World Wide Web Publishing service (IIS).  The error message was rather cryptic, say that it might be due to my login account not having service start permissions – but I know I have.

Debugging step 1:  Look in the windows services list and see if I can manually start the service. This was a little more helpful as it told me it couldn’t start due to a dependency not starting.

Debugging step 2: Check the service dependencies.  It appears that the Windows Process Activation service (WAS) wouldn’t start, although it only returned the message “Error 13: The data is invalid?.

Debugging Step 3: Check the system event log.  Here I found the most helpful message so far:

The Windows Process Activation Service encountered an error trying to read configuration data from file ‘\\?\C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config’, line number ’0′.  The error message is: ‘Configuration file is not well-formed XML’.  The data field contains the error number.

It seems that at some point the applicationHost.config got trashed.  Luckily, when you make changes to web applications in IIS it creates a backup of the applicationHost.config file in c:\inetpub\history.  All you need to do is copy a good copy from the history and put it into c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\config.

And Roberts your mothers brother, WAS starts, IIS starts and the repair of SharePoint can continue!

ps. I’m running IIS7 on Windows 2008 Server.

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22 responses so far

22 Responses to “When IIS Wont Start – Error 13”

  1. # Jessicaon 08 Sep 2008 at 8:21 pm

    Thanks for the post, I had exactly the same issue and this fixed it.

  2. # Ashley Burgesson 09 Oct 2008 at 10:00 am

    Thanks!

    Your post save my sharepoint install after Microsoft Windows Server 2008 decided to fill the ApplicationHost.config file with NULL’s.

  3. # JLon 24 Dec 2008 at 7:10 pm

    Thanks! This was a lifesaver. I tried to install Hyper-V and it completely hosed my system. After removing Hyper-V this issue was left over and the steps you listed resolved it.

  4. # Matthew Kozlowskion 25 Feb 2009 at 11:29 pm

    This was great help. Our IIS crapped out after the Hyper-V update.

  5. # Thomsenon 20 Aug 2009 at 10:17 am

    You just saved my day.. :-)

    Thank you for a great post.

  6. # Joseon 10 Sep 2009 at 9:05 pm

    Thanks. This works.

  7. # AKAon 12 Sep 2009 at 10:48 am

    Thanks a lot! It works like a charm!!!

  8. # Garry MCGillon 23 Sep 2009 at 4:30 pm

    thanks for this – fixed my SBS 2008 after an upgrade to WSS :)

  9. # IIS won’t start – Error 13: The data is invalid. - Gunnar Peipman's ASP.NET blogon 27 Sep 2009 at 12:45 am

    [...] need more specific description about this error then GrinGod blog has very good posting to read: When IIS Wont Start – Error 13. Posted: Sep 27 2009, 02:39 AM by DigiMortal | with no comments Filed under: [...]

  10. # IIS won’t start – Error 13: The data is invalid. | I love .NET!on 27 Sep 2009 at 2:04 am

    [...] If you need more specific description about this error then GrinGod blog has very good posting to read: When IIS Wont Start – Error 13. [...]

  11. # Shannon, Liu.on 04 Nov 2009 at 4:47 am

    No1.
    Why I can’t find the config file under the path mentioned in your blog?
    No2.

    I have to uninstall IIS and then re-install it.
    It works.

    Obviously,it’s not a good solution for people who has a pile of sites set already there.

  12. # Chadgon 02 Feb 2010 at 10:29 pm

    Awesome! You saved me hours of debugging! Worked 1st time!

  13. # Robertaon 19 Feb 2010 at 6:22 pm

    Thanks so much – have just set up the server yesterday and was testing some scripts today and had no idea what had gone wrong , Cheers ;)

  14. # Lukeon 05 Mar 2010 at 10:54 am

    Thanks – Worked for me!

  15. # IIS won’t start – Error 13: The data is invalid. | OOP - Object Oriented Programingon 04 May 2010 at 10:15 pm

    [...] If you need more specific description about this error then GrinGod blog has very good posting to read: When IIS Wont Start – Error 13. [...]

  16. # Kenon 08 Jun 2010 at 3:58 am

    Thanks for this tip!
    I uninstalled Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange on my exchange server and OWA stopped working – with the same useless messages.
    I was able to track it to the same issue you described, but I had to modify the applicationHost.config file to remove the references to the Symantec sites/files. FYI it was in four different sections of the file – site, add path, and 2x in location.

  17. # Calon 10 Mar 2011 at 2:40 am

    Thanks – now I can go to bed :)

  18. # Jeremy Lon 23 Apr 2011 at 11:16 pm

    THANK YOU…saved my behind :)

  19. # Addyon 06 May 2011 at 9:00 pm

    Genius!! Wasted 2 days on this… and you saved all my future…

  20. # JoerBrandoon 17 Aug 2011 at 8:40 am

    Thank you very much! Worked like a charm! :)

  21. # Ivainson 24 Aug 2011 at 4:53 am

    Fantastic! Now I can go grab a cold one. :D

  22. # Joeon 23 Sep 2011 at 2:45 am

    Thanks! Saved me LOTS of time.

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