The service cannot accept control messages at this time

Question

I just stopped an Application Pool in IIS. When trying to start it, IIS complains that,

The service cannot accept control messages at this time. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80080425).

What gives? Whence did this error come?

Looking at the Event Viewer > System shows these warnings:

A worker process '1456' serving application pool 'MyAppPool' failed to stop a listener channel for protocol 'http' in the allotted time. The data field contains the error number.

A process serving application pool 'MyAppPool' suffered a fatal communication error with the Windows Process Activation Service. The process id was '10592'. The data field contains the error number.

A process serving application pool 'MyAppPool' exceeded time limits during shut down. The process id was '10516'.

This resolved itself after about 5-minutes, at which point we tried to restart the website, and received:

The World Wide Web Publish Service (W3SVC) is stopped. Web sites cannot be started unless the World Wide Web Publishing Service (W3SVC) is running.

So, we started the W3SVC service, and then we could start our website.

Check Visual Studio , If debugger is attached and the process is in debugging mode.Or else go to Local Services and restart Credentials Manager. — Umara A. Zahid, Dec 08 '16 at 05:59

score 138 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 23 '16 at 14:13

138

This helped me: just wait about a minute or two.

Wait a few minutes, then retry your operation.

Ref: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms833805.aspx

answered Sep 23 '16 at 14:13

user1412699

1,846
1
13
15

28

I'm a software developer, dealing with this often. I can't just wait a minute or two. – Daniel Hursan Nov 16 '20 at 13:56
1

Confirmed, I had waited a minute and was still getting that error, which made me nervous and brought me here. Just had to wait a couple minutes longer than I had. – neminem Apr 08 '21 at 15:42

score 54 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 21 '16 at 23:03

54

The error message could result due to the following reason:

The service associated with Credential Manager does not start.
Some files associated with the application have gone corrupt.

Please follow the steps mentioned below to resolve the issue:

Method 1:

Click on the “Start”
In the text box that reads “Search Program and Files” type “Services”
Right click on “Services” and select “Run as Administrator”
In the Services Window, look for Credential Manager Service and “Stop” it.
Restart the computer and “Start” the Credential Manager Service and set it to “Automatic”.
Restart the computer and it should work fine.

Method 2: 1. Run System File Checker. Refer to the link mentioned below for additional information: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

edited Jan 21 '16 at 23:03

Serguei Fedorov

7,763
9
63
94

answered Jan 21 '16 at 07:11

Sathyaa Narayanan

641
5
4

10

Method 1 worked for me on Windows 10. Did not need to restart the computer. – Zeeshan Sep 11 '16 at 05:00
3

Method 1 worked for me on Windows Server 2012 R2 without the need to restart the machine – Nick Mar 06 '17 at 12:33
2

Why would you need to stop one service (step 4) before stopping the whole OS (step 5)? In my case, simply restarting the Credential Manager was enough. – jpaugh May 09 '17 at 20:47
3

How is the Credential Manager related to IIS? (I am surprised to find that restarting the Credential Manager service did indeed allow me to start the app pool.) – jpaugh May 09 '17 at 20:48

score 27 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 02 '16 at 12:49

27

In my case, the VS debugger was attached to the w3wp process. After detaching the debugger, I was able to restart the Application Pool

answered Dec 02 '16 at 12:49

mcanti

1,964
2
17
14

score 27 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 15 '18 at 08:15

27

I stopped the IIS Worker Process (in task manager), and then started the IIS again. It worked.

answered Feb 15 '18 at 08:15

Zag Gol

1,038
1
18
43

score 14 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 12 '17 at 07:24

14

I killed related w3wp.exe (on a friends' advise) at task manager and it worked.

Note: Use at your own risk. Be careful picking which one to kill.

answered Jan 12 '17 at 07:24

Doruk

884
9
25

Anki · Answer 6 · 2019-05-01T11:35:32.620

Restarting the machine worked for me but not every time.

If you are really stuck on this then follow below steps

Open Task Manager
A window will open. Click on Details tab.
Search for the process name you wanted to restart/stop.
Select process, right click on it, select End task option.
A confirmation dialog box will appear. Click on End process button.
Now try to restart your service from Services.msc window.

score 5 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 11 '17 at 20:35

5

I forgot I had mine attached to Visual Studio debugger. Be sure to disconnect from there, and then wait a moment. Otherwise killing the process viewing the PID from the Worker Processes functionality of IIS manager will work too.

answered Dec 11 '17 at 20:35

eaglei22

2,589
1
38
53

Visual Studio Remote Debugger was the issue for me as well. – sfarbota Aug 02 '19 at 21:13
1

Same for me. Hint to find the PID of the Application Pool: Select the servername in IIS manager and then "Worker Processes" is found in the IIS-section... – Lars Peter Larsen Aug 07 '19 at 11:09

score 5 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 25 '18 at 09:48

5

Restarting the IIS windows service (World Wide Web Publishing Service) and then starting the application pool has worked for me. However, as the top answer suggests it may have just been the waiting that caused it to subsequently work.

answered Oct 25 '18 at 09:48

Francis Dean

2,386
2
22
29

score 5 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 18 '19 at 16:37

I had this issue recently,

Problem statement: Mine was a windows service that I run locally by attaching VS debugger. When I stop debugging and try to restart/stop the service (under services.msc) I used to get the mentioned error.

Solution:

Open up Task manager.
Search for the service (based on the exe name and not service name, for those that are different).
Kill the service.

On doing the above the service is stopped.

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Mar 31 '17 at 14:08

2

Being impatient, I created a new App Pool with the same settings and used that.

answered Mar 31 '17 at 14:08

Dunc

18,404
6
86
103

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered May 16 '17 at 17:47

I kept having this problem whenever I tried to start an app pool more than once. Rather than rebooting, I simply run the Application Information Service. (Note: This service is set to run manually on my system, which may be the reason for the problem.) From its description, it seems obvious that it is somehow involved:

Facilitates the running of interactive applications with additional administrative privileges. If this service is stopped, users will be unable to launch applications with the additional administrative privileges they may require to perform desired user tasks.

Presumably, IIS manager (as well as most other processes running as an administrator) does not maintain admin privileges throughout the life of the process, but instead request admin rights from the Application Information service on a case-by-case basis.

Source: social.technech.microsoft.com

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Apr 17 '23 at 08:33

1

The debugger might be attached to w3wp.exe via "attach to process" making it unable to restart.

answered Apr 17 '23 at 08:33

Akshay Kumar Sharma

212
1
2
9

The service cannot accept control messages at this time

12 Answers12