Why is my local website not working in IIS

Question

This problem has a very simple (almost silly) fix, but it took me 2 hours to discover today, and none of my searches gave the answer, so I am posting this along with the answer to help others.

I have a website set up in IIS to run locally, which has worked in the past.
The URL is like: http://localhost/mywebsite

But today when I tried to open the site, it did not work in any of my browsers (IE, Chrome, and Firefox). Even the main IIS Welcome page at http://localhost was not working.

• Internet Explorer showed: "Can't reach this page / Make sure the web address http://localhost is correct". Under "More information", it showed "There was a temporary DNS error. Try refreshing the page. Error Code: INET_E_RESOURCE_NOT_FOUND"

• Firefox showed: "Unable to connect / Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at localhost."

• Chrome showed: "This site can't be reached / localhost refused to connect / ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED"

Neither restarting the server in IIS, nor calling iisreset from a command prompt fixed it.

I compared my "hosts" file to another computer which was not having the problem. Both had the same entry for "127.0.0.1 localhost".

I checked the Services panel and verified that "World Wide Web Publishing Services" was running.

I ran "netstat -a". It showed nothing listening on port 80, but I didn't know what was causing that.

Based on suggestions I found while searching for a solution, I tried the following, none of which fixed the problem:

• I turned off User Account Control.

• In IIS, I updated the Site Bindings for "Default Web Site" to change the port number from 80 to a different value, 8085. The site did not load with the new port number either.

• In case something in IIS had gotten corrupted or messed up, I used "Turn Windows features on or off" to turn off all the features for Internet Information Services. Then after rebooting, I turned them all on again and rebooted again.

I still had the same problem.

What else could be causing IIS and my local website not to work?

Tallowy

Are you using Windows Integrated Authentication for login? – Continue

Answer 1

Make sure the website has been started in IIS:

• In the left pane of IIS Manager under "Sites", select the appropriate site. If your site is configured under the "Default Web Site", select that one.

• In the right pane under "Manage Website", there are "Start" and "Stop" links.

• When the website is running, the Start icon (arrow) will be gray and its link will be disabled; the Stop icon (square) will be black and its link will be enabled.

• When the website is NOT running, the Start arrow will be green and enabled; the Stop icon will be gray and disabled.

So if the Start link has a Green arrow by it, that means the website is NOT running, and you need to click to start it.

By default, web sites are started automatically when IIS is started or restarted. But if you click the link to stop the site, it will remain stopped even after you reboot the computer or restart IIS. It won't be restarted until you click Start again.

Tallowy

Please mark the answer so that it can help others with similar problems. – Raeleneraf

I doubt if this really solved the issue. Who marked it as an answer? – Continue

Answer 2

I had also this situation where a local website hosted by IIS did not work. My site was already started but it seemed to lack the rights for an internet browser to access to the local site.

In my case I got the site working by giving the site's root folder (and its contents in the Windows 10 file system) the following usage rights:

Authenticated Users

This usage right can be set in folder properties and its security tab.

Other usage rights present are:
SYSTEM
My own account
Adminstrators (MACHINENAME\Admistrators)

I post this solution here in case someone is in trouble with the same issue.

An update: This 'Authenticated Users' group needs also permission to modify files and folders in case e.g. Wordpress is used as a local site and the adminstrator wants to e.g. update themes and plugins of the site.

If this permission is not set, Wordpress will fail to write the updates to the local folder. The message shown is: "Installation Failed: Could Not Create Directory".

However, please note that at the moment I cannot guarantee that these settings are completely safe and do not compromise your system for attackers etc. But I've taken the risk myself, and the settings will provide a working environment to develop locally.

Nummulite

I have tried that too. I have given "Everyone" the "Full Control" permission to my projects folder from where I am running the applications ... but still getting the same error :( – Continue

Answer 3

Sometimes this problem happens because the application pool is stopped after the server machine was restarted. This is the problem that happened to me. If the application pool is stopped, try restarting it. Picture for clarification:

Multiracial

As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please edit to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. – Frontogenesis

I tested stopping the application pool for my website. That caused an "HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable" error rather than the errors listed in the original post. So this answer may be useful for a website which is giving a 503 error. – Tallowy

Answer 4

I encountered this issue recently, and none of the other answers here helped me. I was unable to connect with http://localhost/mywebsite, but I could with http://127.0.0.1/mywebsite. I was able to put a bandaid on the issue by creating a new binding:

Type: https
IP address: All Unassigned
Port: 443
Host name: empty
[x] Disable Legacy TLS
SSL certificate: IIS Express Development Certificate

I could then connect with https://localhost/mywebsite. Hopefully this helps someone else!

Gangling

Answer 5

Here is my solution of similar problem with localhost not working in local browser:

1. Go to IIS panel and right-click mouse on your site
2. Choose "change bindings"
3. Make sure IP is "All unassigned" and Host name is not defined (empty)

Carbaugh

Answer 6

Adding new https binding in IIS helped me as well. Then I discovered that my original https binding did not have any SSL certificate selected. Once I selected one my local application started to work again with the default port 443.

Perfoliate