9.11.2006

 

IIS Admin service - problem and solution

I ran into a problem with the IIS Admin service on my Windows XP SP2 laptop PC yesterday. After some digging, I found the solution. If you run into the same problem, maybe this information will be helpful.

The first sign of a problem was localhost not responding. I checked to see if the web publishing service was running, which it wasn't. When I tried to start it I got
Error 1068, dependency service or group failed to start.
I checked the IIS Admin service and found it wasn't running, either. When I tried to start that service I got:
Error 13, the data is invalid.
I checked the system event log and found IIS Admin has been failing to start for several reboots. I don't access localhost on this machine very often so I'm not surprised I didn't notice this sooner.

Running sc query iisadmin from the command prompt showed the service stopped with an exit code of 0x8007000d.
SERVICE_EXIT_CODE: -2147024883 (0x8007000d)
A search of the Web for some reference to that exit code turned up a suggestion the problem might be related to the metabase file in windows\system32\inetsrv. I found two files on my machine: MetaBase.bin.beforexmlupg, at about 225KB, and MetaBase.bin at over 2.5MB. A clue was the date stamp on MetaBase.bin was about the same as the date the event log showed the IIS Admin service began failing to run. The other file, MetaBase.bin.beforexmlupg, had an earlier date.

I don't know what MetaBase.bin.beforexmlupg is. I checked another Win XP SP2 machine and it didn't have that file. From its name and date stamp I figured it might be related to a security update I applied on or about that date, but that's pure speculation on my part. A search for that file name on MSDN and TechNet turns up no hits.

I'm no IIS expert, but assuming MetaBase.bin was invalid I moved it to a temporary directory (in case I needed it again) and copied MetaBase.bin.beforexmlupg back to MetaBase.bin. I figured this was risky, but I didn't have a lot to lose at that point. I then started the IIS Admin service: success. I started the web publishing service: success. And of course, localhost was back in business, too.

I certainly can't guarantee this solution will work on other machines or in other situations, but it did work in this case. I'm still searching for more information to find out what caused this problem in the first place.

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# posted by Rick Borup @ 10:25 PM | Links to this post
Comments:
Hey...! This solution just worked perfectly for me...

Metabase.bin is in "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv". I found Metabase.bin (8K) and Metabase.bin.tmp (210K). Renamed .tmp to .bin and everything worked! Solved both Web Publication error 1068 and IIS Admin error 13.

(Note: I'm using XP SP2).
# posted by Anonymous P-Y : 11:59 PM
 
Awesome! worked perfectly for me. Thanks for publishing this.
# posted by Blogger Rafafá : 11:10 AM
 
Thank's for this information

(Windows XP SP2)

I found the file with Metabase.bin (245K)in "WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv" and Metabase.bin.tmp (2654K), then I renamed .bin.tem to .bin,and this problem was solved
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 9:26 PM
 
Thank's, your post perfectly solve this problem
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 8:32 PM
 
Thanks a lot i copied the Metabase.bin from another machine and it worked.
# posted by Anonymous ram : 1:05 AM
 
Thank you. I would have wasted an entire weekend if your post wasnt to come up. The solution works exactly as you have said on XP.
# posted by Blogger sidharth : 6:59 AM
 
This solution worked for me too. Thanks, for posting this
# posted by Blogger AAmir : 12:21 AM
 
Big Thanks for posting this!!!
I was in a situation that I cannot reinstall iis as that was a remote host and i would have to go all the way with my WIN XP cd to install IIS to fix this problem. Then I tried the solution given by you. and thank god it worked!!!

Many thanks...
# posted by Blogger iamcozithink : 12:18 PM
 
Thanks! Guy that made my ISS back to business! I moved the metadata.bin (probably corrupted) to another foler and when the iss admin started It created a new metadata.bin in the right folder.

Thanks AGAIN!
# posted by Blogger Faith Sparrow : 12:02 PM
 
Please add me too to the list. This solution worked for me too. Thanks a ton my friend - Whoever you are and wherever you are !!
# posted by Anonymous Anand Majethia : 8:03 AM
 
I had the exact same problem described here after installing a hotfix. I simply deleted the Metabase.bin file in C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv. This worked great!
# posted by Blogger xnaame : 10:13 AM
 
You must be an absolute genius. That was a great solution :)
# posted by Blogger Sriram.R : 5:48 AM
 
Thanks. I found this post and quickly fixed my IIS problem.
# posted by Blogger Steve Morin : 7:36 AM
 
Well... I got very very happy when I first saw the post... Unfortunately I only have a Metabase.bin (225KB) file and no "backup" or "beforesomething"...
Thanks anyway... I´ve seen you helped a lot of people.
# posted by Blogger Ginnungagap : 10:57 PM
 
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