Preguntas Frecuentes - FAQ

Symptoms

IIS service does not respond; Websites and Control Panel are down.

The following error is shown in IIS Manager:

    Filename:
    \\?\C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config
    Error: Cannot write configuration file

or

    There was an error while performing this operation.
    Details: 
    Filename: \\?\C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config
    Line number: 1517
    Error: Configuration file is not well-formed XML

Note: The file path may differ from those above.

Cause

The issue may occur if there is not enough disk space on the server. The file path may vary from the one above, but essentially, the error means that IIS has failed to write to one of its configuration files, i.e.,'C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config' in the above example.

Resolution

Free up enough disk space and restore the latest IIS configuration backup.

Example commands for IIS 7:

cd %windir%\System32\inetsrv

C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv>appcmd list backup
BACKUP "CFGHISTORY_0000000054"
BACKUP "CFGHISTORY_0000000055"
…
BACKUP "CFGHISTORY_0000000062"

C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv>appcmd restore backup CFGHISTORY_0000000062
Restored configuration from backup "CFGHISTORY_0000000062"

NOTE: The file at the bottom of the list is usually the latest one, however to confirm it, you may check the creation date. The backups are stored in 'C:\Inetpub\history' by default.

In case your restoration fails with the following error:

    ERROR ( hresult:80070005, message:Command execution failed.
    Access is denied.
     )

Disable 'Read Only' attribute on a file 'C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\schema\rewrite_schema'

Restart IIS after restoring the configuration:

iisreset /restart