IIS Manager Freezes when trying to list App Pools or Sites

Question

I have just updated the password against an application pool identity for my user in IIS to bring it up to date, as per:

HTTP Error 503, the service is unavailable

However now when I run IIS Manager it freezes when I try to list the application pools, list the sites, or do a restart. This means I can't go back and double check I entered the correct password against the application pool.

The windows event logs show no errors or warnings. I have also tried restarting the PC but this does not help.

Has anyone encountered this before or have any idea what may be causing it?

I am running Windows 10 and IIS version 10.0.10586.0

Answer 1

I fixed this by reinstalling IIS:

• Go to Windows Features, and Uncheck Internet Information Services (making sure you take a note of the sub-features you have switched on)
• Restart PC
• Go to Windows Features, and Check Internet Information Services (making sure you also include the relevant sub-features you previously had switched on before)

After this it worked fine again.

Answer 2

I fixed this on Windows 10 with IIS 10.0.19041.1288 without reinstalling as follows:

• First, I noticed that IIS Manager won't let me terminate/restart the web server, either (ends with a timeout).
• Then, I checked my Services in Task Manager, where the WWW Publishing Service (W3SVC) was hanging in "Being terminated" state.
• Then, I went to the Services section in my Control Panel to find the executable behind the service - it's svchost, with command line C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k iissvcs.

Thus, I could go back to Task Manager to kill the process with that command line. You may have to add the command line column on the Details tab if it is not shown yet.

After terminating that services, IIS Manager would behave normally again, start/restart the server without any problematic delay, and display the list of application pools.