I recommend WFETCH, which is included in the IIS6 Resource Kit tools (you can install on XP/Windows 2003 only, and can either run it from there or copy wfetch.exe to your Vista/LHS box). Īn aside: If you don’t want to mess with IE for troubleshooting (especially if you suspect you are getting cached pages, due to IE’s super- aggressive caching), the best thing to do is break out a trusty simple http tool of choice and make the request with it. I have a detailed guide to troubleshooting this condition here: Where did my IIS7 server go? Troubleshooting “server not found” errors. This is typically caused by IE failing to connect to your website, so there is no server error message to look at here. Now, suppose you are still seeing the generic “cannot display the webpage” or “page not found” error. Then, close the browser, open it again, and re-request the page. To disable this and see the real error coming from the server, you need to go to “Tools > Internet Options”, choose the Advanced tab, and clear the “Show friendly HTTP error messages” checkbox. For example, for a 404 Not Found error, you may instead see the following: IE will by default replace the actual error messages coming from the server with a “friendly” error message, which hides the error contents we need to see. Let’s look at a few things you may need to do to get there:ġ) Disable IE “Friendly HTTP error messages” Unfortunately, sometimes getting to this error is the main challenge. IIS7 has much better error messages that will often tell you exactly what the problem is, and help you fix it.
Huh, what doesnt work? When your site stops working, the first thing you need to do is determine what the error actually is before we can move any further. I often find myself asking this question on the forums when someone posts something like “Help, I moved to IIS7 and now my application doesn’t work!”.
IIS7 strives to improve the experience of diagnosing and solving problems when they do occur, so knowing how to use the new IIS7 diagnostics features can come a long way in helping you become a pro at troubleshooting server problems. Server software, and web servers specifically, are very complex and highly configurable systems that support multi-tier applications using a variety of technologies and subsystems, and endure further complexity due to security, performance, and reliability demands, so it’s a wonder it all works as well as it does in the end.