Article ID: 279729 - Last Review: July 3, 2008 - Revision: 8.1

Web Pages Not Serving from IIS

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This article was previously published under Q279729

We strongly recommend that all users upgrade to Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) version 7.0 running on Microsoft Windows Server 2008. IIS 7.0 significantly increases Web infrastructure security. For more information about IIS security-related topics, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/prodtech/IIS.mspx (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/prodtech/IIS.mspx)

For more information about IIS 7.0, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=1 (http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=1)

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SYMPTOMS

When trying to browse a Web page that is hosted by Internet Information Server/Services, clients may report they are unable to connect.

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CAUSE

Unfortunately, there is no single cause for IIS failing to serve Web pages. Even if network connectivity can be eliminated as the cause, additional information is required to determine the exact reason why clients cannot connect to the server.

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MORE INFORMATION

Because IIS is a complex product that relies on various operating system components, it is important to determine if only certain types of content have stopped being served. Following are two samples that you can use to test the two most common types of content:

Static HTML (.htm or .html files)
Active Server Pages (ASP) pages (.asp files)

To test IIS's ability to serve HTML (static) content.

Create a file called Hello.htm in the content folder for IIS (by default, this is C:\Inetpub\Wwwroot) that contains the sample code listed below.
Then request http://localhost/hello.htm (http://localhost/hello.htm) from the Web browser that is installed on the IIS server.

<HTML>
<TITLE>HTML Test Page</TITLE>

If you see "Hello World" below, then HTML pages are serving properly.

     <STRONG>Hello World</STRONG>
</HTML>

To test IIS's ability to serve ASP (dynamic) content.

Create a file called Hello.asp in the content folder for IIS (by default, C:\Inetpub\Wwwroot), that contains the following sample code,
Then request http://localhost/hello.asp (http://localhost/hello.asp) from the Web browser that is installed on the IIS server.

<%
   strWrld="Hello World"
%>

<HTML>
<TITLE>ASP Test Page</TITLE>

If you see "Hello World" below, then ASP pages in this Web application are serving properly.

     <STRONG><%=strWrld%></STRONG>
</HTML>

The Hello.htm and Hello.asp samples can also be downloaded.
The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

Hello.exe (http://download.microsoft.com/download/iis50/other/1.0/win98mexp/en-us/hello.exe)

Release Date: May-17-2001

For additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

119591 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/119591/EN-US/ ) How to Obtain Microsoft Support Files from Online Services

Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help to prevent any unauthorized changes to the file. The Hello.exe file contains the following files:

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File Name	Size
Hello.htm	631 bytes
Hello.asp	789 bytes

Hello.asp Displays Properly

If the phrase "Hello World" is displayed properly on the ASP test page, but another ASP page does not serve properly, the following reasons may apply:

The failing ASP page is running in a separate process from the Web application that is running the Hello.asp test page. Each process (Inetinfo.exe, Mtx.exe, or Dllhost.exe) that is capable of serving ASP pages (or any other Internet Server API application) has its own thread pool, which is separate from the thread pool in other processes. If one process is experiencing blocking (also known as ASP queuing, which occurs when all available threads are in use but additional requests continue to come in), a separate process may continue serving ASP pages properly because it has its own thread pool from which to execute requests.
The failing page is not executing static HTML or ASP content. If the failing page is a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) application, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article for additional information on troubleshooting CGI applications: If the failing page is executed by an ISAPI application developed by a third-party company, contact that third party for technical support.

Hello.asp Does Not Display Properly

If the phrase "Hello World" is not displayed on the ASP page, it is possible that the ASP threads are queued, blocked, or deadlocked, which requires additional problem-solving that is beyond the scope of this article.
The failing ASP page contains a problem that is preventing IIS from properly serving ASP content (see the thread pool/ASP queuing information earlier in this article). If custom COM objects are in use on any of the pages that are failing, you can try contacting the vendor of those COM objects or the developer of that page for technical support. To determine if COM objects are in use, search for occurrences of "Set" (Microsoft Visual Basic Script) or "var" (Microsoft JScript). If either of those keywords exist, the COM object called is in the parentheses following CreateObject (VBScript or JScript) or ActiveXObject (JScript).

Hello.htm Does Not Display Properly

If Hello.htm does not display properly, one of the following reasons may apply:

IIS is not listening on the IP address and port requested by the client.
Networking issues are preventing the client from reaching the server (consider testing with a Web browser on the IIS server).

For more information on troubleshooting Web applications, see the following Microsoft Web pages:

Debugging Distributed Web Applications
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms951776.aspx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms951776.aspx)

Problem Isolation with Web-Based Applications

325162 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325162/ ) Support WebCast: Problem Isolation with Web-Based Applications

To learn about recommended settings and optimization of IIS, see the following Microsoft Web pages:

The Art and Science of Web Server Tuning with Internet Information Services 5.0
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb734897.aspx (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb734897.aspx)

Tuning Internet Information Server Performance
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/2000/bb735378.aspx (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/2000/bb735378.aspx)

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