"HTTP Error 500-12 Application" error message or Active Server Pages stop responding (hang) when you add a Global.asa to your Web site in FrontPage

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This article was previously published under Q302424

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129972 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/129972/ ) Computer viruses: description, prevention, and recovery

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SYMPTOMS

If you add a Global.asa to your Web site, Active Server Pages (ASP) stop responding (hang) or you see an error message similar to the following:

HTTP Error 500-12 Application Restarting
Internet Information Services

This can also occur if you are developing ASP in other programs such as Microsoft Visual Interdev and you add a Global.asa file to the site.

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CAUSE

This problem can occur if an antivirus program is scanning the Global.asa file. This behavior has been seen in the following situations:

You have configured the Symantec Norton AntiVirus program to use the Script Blocking feature when scanning the Global.asa file.
You have configured the McAfee NetShield antivirus program to scan Web application files.

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RESOLUTION

Configure the antivirus program to not scan the global.asa file. For information about how to contact your antivirus software vendor, view the following hardware and software third-party vendor contact information: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/vendors/en-us (http://support.microsoft.com/gp/vendors/en-us)

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MORE INFORMATION

A Global.asa file is used by ASP to store information for the Application and Session objects. (A Global.asa file is created automatically by FrontPage when you create a database connection to store information about the database connection parameters.)

If the Global.asa file is modified, the Web application needs to be restarted by Internet Information Services (IIS) to refresh the variables contained in the file. When the application restarts, the Global.asa file is reloaded by IIS. If an antivirus program sees that the Global.asa file is being accessed by another process, it scans the file and marks it as modified, and the entire process repeats itself. This can result in the error message or the system not responding as decribed in the "Symptoms" section earlier in this article.

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REFERENCES

For additional information about the HTTP Error 500-12 Application Restarting error message, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

248013 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/248013/EN-US/ ) Err Msg: HTTP Error 500-12 Application Restarting

303881 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303881/EN-US/ ) PRB: Session Variables Are Lost in ASP Web Applications

The third-party products that are discussed in this article are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.

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