Aug 15 2008
When IIS Wont Start – Error 13
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.
Thanks for the post, I had exactly the same issue and this fixed it.
Thanks!
Your post save my sharepoint install after Microsoft Windows Server 2008 decided to fill the ApplicationHost.config file with NULL’s.
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.
This was great help. Our IIS crapped out after the Hyper-V update.
You just saved my day..
Thank you for a great post.
Thanks. This works.
Thanks a lot! It works like a charm!!!
thanks for this – fixed my SBS 2008 after an upgrade to WSS
[...] 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: [...]
[...] If you need more specific description about this error then GrinGod blog has very good posting to read: When IIS Wont Start – Error 13. [...]
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.
Awesome! You saved me hours of debugging! Worked 1st time!
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
Thanks – Worked for me!
[...] If you need more specific description about this error then GrinGod blog has very good posting to read: When IIS Wont Start – Error 13. [...]
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.
Thanks – now I can go to bed
THANK YOU…saved my behind
Genius!! Wasted 2 days on this… and you saved all my future…
Thank you very much! Worked like a charm!
Fantastic! Now I can go grab a cold one.
Thanks! Saved me LOTS of time.
I think because I uninstalled SP1, I got this error listed in System Windows Logs:
The Windows Process Activation Service encountered an error trying to read configuration data for config section ‘system.applicationHost/applicationPools’ from file ‘\\?\C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config’, line number ’130′. The error message is: ‘Unrecognized attribute ‘setProfileEnvironment’
To fix it, I removed the attribute, setProfileEnvironment=”false”, from the tag. I had to edit the file with notepad. For some reason, my other editors could not see any files in this folder.
Thanks from my end too…. your instructions are exact and I have solved this issue which I have faced some moments before…. nice presentation…
Many thanks for the post. This was exactly my problem.
Super Great Information. Made my afternoon end at 5 instead of later.
This article helped resolve the same issue on a 2012 server running Exchange 2013. I couldn’t access the exchange admin center. Thanks a ton!
Thank you so much save our day issue resolved.
that’s nice. it fixed my issue