One of two identical asp.net websites not responding

[mills.toby]

We have a Windows 2003 Server, serving an asp.net (2.0) website.
Recently the website stopped responding. When trying to access the
website, no response is received at all. This includes when browsing
the website from the local machine.

While investigating the problem, we added a second copy of the
website, created a second virtual directory in IIS, tried to access
it, and it worked. The original website was still not responding.

Further investigation showed that after restarting IIS, whichever of
the 2 websites was accessed first would hang, and then the other would
work just fine. The problem also is restricted to an Application Pool.
If I create a second application pool, with two more copies of the
website, only the website accessed second will respond (i.e. we have
two responsive and two non-responsive websites).

This problem only began recently on 2 separate servers (on the same
WAN) that were both previously working fine. We created a brand new
Virtual Server and were immediately faced with the same problem.

We have two other servers on the same WAN, with the same website
installed which do not suffer from this problem at all.

Has anybody seen anything like this before?

Thanks in advance,
Toby

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

What do the identical applications do ?

Could they be competing for resources which need to be locked down ?
Would resource contention be a possible source of the problem ?

 

[mills.toby]

What do the identical applications do ?

Could they be competing for resources which need to be locked down ?
Would resource contention be a possible source of the problem ?

The application is a database driven application for managing mining
related data. The problem is not resource contention, as it is the
first instance that hangs - even if the second instance is never
started up. In fact the first instance hangs even if there is no
second instance!

 

[Registered User]

We have a Windows 2003 Server, serving an asp.net (2.0) website.
Recently the website stopped responding. When trying to access the
website, no response is received at all. This includes when browsing
the website from the local machine.

While investigating the problem, we added a second copy of the
website, created a second virtual directory in IIS, tried to access
it, and it worked. The original website was still not responding.

Further investigation showed that after restarting IIS, whichever of
the 2 websites was accessed first would hang, and then the other would
work just fine. The problem also is restricted to an Application Pool.
If I create a second application pool, with two more copies of the
website, only the website accessed second will respond (i.e. we have
two responsive and two non-responsive websites).

This problem only began recently on 2 separate servers (on the same
WAN) that were both previously working fine. We created a brand new
Virtual Server and were immediately faced with the same problem.

We have two other servers on the same WAN, with the same website
installed which do not suffer from this problem at all.

This sounds like a configuration issue. I would start by comparing the
working and non-working servers' IIS and event logs.

regards
A.G.

 

[mills.toby]

This sounds like a configuration issue. I would start by comparing the
working and non-working servers'IISand event logs.

regards
A.G.

Looks like we may have cracked the problem. It looks like it was
Symantec AntiVirus. It's just weird that the first website hangs, but
the second works fine. Maybe the first one distracts the AntiVirus
while the second one sneaks in unnoticed!

 

[mills.toby]

This sounds like a configuration issue. I would start by comparing the
working and non-working servers' IIS and event logs.

regards
A.G.

It is the same IIS server, just 2 different virtual directories.

 

[mills.toby]

Looks like we may have cracked the problem. It looks like it was
Symantec AntiVirus. It's just weird that the first website hangs, but
the second works fine. Maybe the first one distracts the AntiVirus
while the second one sneaks in unnoticed!

I take that last remark back. Turning off the antivirus makes no
difference.

Anybody have any ideas?

 

[mills.toby]

I take that last remark back. Turning off the antivirus makes no
difference.

Anybody have any ideas?

Some additional information:

After restarting IIS:
I access site 1 and it hangs
I access site 2 and it responds fine
I edit the web.config file for site 1 (making no actually change)
forcing a recompile, and it works fine.
So I have 2 working sites.

But if I restart IIS, I'm back to square one, with wichever website I
access first not responding.