IIS Express gives Access Denied error when debugging ASP.NET MVC

Question

I have created an ASP.NET MVC 3 project, and am using IIS Express as the web server when developing. When I try to debug, I get the error message below.

How can this be solved?

Server Error in '/' Application.

Access is denied. Description: An error occurred while accessing the resources required to serve this request. The server may not be configured for access to the requested URL.

Error message 401.2.: Unauthorized: Logon failed due to server configuration. Verify that you have permission to view this directory or page based on the credentials you supplied and the authentication methods enabled on the Web server. Contact the Web server's administrator for additional assistance.

are you running the IISExpress without administrative Privileges? — chandmk, Jan 29 '12 at 14:02
So after banging my head on this for a while I finally realized it was because VS hadn't set a default page and apparently IISExpress.exe doesn't give folder listings to make that obvious. — Mark Allen, Aug 06 '14 at 22:58

Jason · Answer 1 · 2016-09-21T20:12:03.510

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If you are using Visual Studio, you can also left-click on the project in Solution Explorer and change the Windows Authentication property to Enabled in the Properties window.

edited Sep 21 '16 at 20:12

answered Jul 08 '13 at 07:13

Jason

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This is not specific to Visual Studio 2012, it can be made at least on Visual Studio 2010 too. – Loïc Lopes Sep 02 '13 at 12:59
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Worked for me in VS 2013. – kaybee99 Jan 12 '15 at 12:50
This is the least invasive solution. This is likely how MS would want us to do this. – Tony L. Jun 15 '15 at 16:17
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You also need to disable Anonymous authentication. – Glazed Oct 02 '15 at 18:42
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In solution explorer click the the project name under solution node, then switch to Properties window, there you can see property Windows Authentication set it to Enabled – sairfan Mar 06 '19 at 19:14
Thanks for this!! This worked for me. We are using a custom roll provider and this needed to be set on the project. – Bindum May 14 '19 at 18:20
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I don't see this setting anywhere in the properties window. I am using VS 2015. – Mark Bonafe Sep 11 '19 at 13:40
This is only relevant if you are running your application in the debugger (F5), so it will be hosted in IIS Exress. If you are having authentication issues when attaching to an IIS application pool, then this answer does not apply. – Florian Winter Jan 14 '21 at 09:58
See Tony L's answer below for detailed instructions. – ErikusMaximus Feb 19 '21 at 18:10

score 101 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 16 '12 at 13:23

101

The cause if had for this problem was IIS Express not allowing WindowsAuthentication. This can be enabled by setting

<windowsAuthentication enabled="true">

in the applicationhost.config file located at C:\Users[username]\Documents\IISExpress\config.

answered Aug 16 '12 at 13:23

Ant Swift

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Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 can add this setting for you, per project, so that the global setting is not changed from its default, see http://stackoverflow.com/a/7168308/23566 – Robert Claypool Mar 31 '13 at 22:31
I am trying that setting, because I am also getting this error in **VS 2013** sporiadically, let's see if it helps, I'll let you know. – Matt Jul 21 '15 at 15:01
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Better if you use %userprofile%\documents\iisexpress\config\applicationhost.config. Mine was on D: (thanks Dan! http://www.danesparza.net/2014/09/using-windows-authentication-with-iisexpress/) – Jeramy Rutley Feb 09 '16 at 16:16
This is the only solution worked for me, thanks a lot! – Mohammad Anini Apr 06 '16 at 10:16
Tried this in VS 2017 and it did not work. The solution posted by Jason did work. – myroslav Aug 10 '18 at 15:36
There's a useful article on this, that clarifies all of the above (though a bit dated, it still works, even in 2019) here: https://digitaldrummerj.me/iis-express-windows-authentication/ – Paul Nov 05 '20 at 13:10

Tony L. · Answer 3 · 2017-08-09T15:28:31.127

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I used Jason's answer but wanted to clarify how to get in to properties.

Select project in Solution Explorer

F4 to get to properties (different than the right click properties)
Change Windows Authentication to Enabled

edited Aug 09 '17 at 15:28

answered Apr 22 '16 at 20:22

Tony L.

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Big thanks for spelling this out and specifying that it's the F4 properties that need to be changed. – PeterDNCO Jan 20 '17 at 23:00
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Thank you! I had to set 'Anonymous Authentication' to 'Enabled' also. – Mahesh Jul 24 '17 at 17:27
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Big Thank You too! – FunMatters Mar 27 '18 at 06:46
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You are beautiful. – kosherjellyfish Mar 14 '19 at 07:25
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I'm using VS 2015, this does not exist! – Mark Bonafe Sep 11 '19 at 13:43
This is only relevant if you are running your application in the debugger (F5), so it will be hosted in IIS Exress. If you are having authentication issues when attaching to an IIS application pool, then this answer does not apply. – Florian Winter Jan 14 '21 at 09:58

score 18 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 25 '14 at 13:49

Hosting on IIS Express: 1. Click on your project in the Solution Explorer to select the project. 2. If the Properties pane is not open, open it (F4). 3. In the Properties pane for your project: a) Set "Anonymous Authentication" to "Disabled". b) Set "Windows Authentication" to "Enabled".

score 11 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

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In my case I had to open the file:

C:\...\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config

I had this inside the file:

  <authentication>
  <anonymousAuthentication enabled="true" User="" />

I just removed the User="" part. I really don't know how this thing got there... :)

Note: Make sure you have something like this in the end of applicationhost.config:

   .
   .
   .
   <location path="MyCompany.MyProjectName.Web">
        <system.webServer>
            <security>
                <authentication>
                    <anonymousAuthentication enabled="true" />
                    <windowsAuthentication enabled="false" />
                </authentication>
            </security>
        </system.webServer>
    </location>
</configuration>

You may also want to take a look here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10041779/114029

Now I can access the login page as expected.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

Community

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answered Jun 10 '12 at 08:52

Leniel Maccaferri

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I followed your steps still its not working for me. If opened from vs2010 it works fine, whats the issue in vs 2013 – GANI May 08 '14 at 02:00
@user1016740 I'm not sure because there are a plethora of possibilities/paths to follow to try to solve this problem. The steps I described here solved it in my environment which I thinks is different from yours. – Leniel Maccaferri May 08 '14 at 16:25
The authentication configuration for your project doesn't belong into `applicationHost.config`. It should be in the `web.config` of your application. – Florian Winter Jan 14 '21 at 10:03

score 8 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 24 '14 at 17:40

8

In my case a previous run of my app from VS reserved the URL. I could see this by running in a console:

netsh http show urlacl

to delete this reservation i ran this in an elevated console:

netsh http delete urlacl http://127.0.0.1:10002/

I found these steps here solved my problem.

I'm using VS2013

answered Feb 24 '14 at 17:40

BillDarcy

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This is super handy if you have ever edited your applicationhost.config to run a site on multiple ports at once. Removing the entries from the .config doesn't remove any reservations in netsh. Thanks man. – Dusda Mar 01 '14 at 21:18

score 5 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 26 '13 at 00:42

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I had to run Visual Studio in Administrative Mode to get rid of this error.

answered Nov 26 '13 at 00:42

Serj Sagan

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frogatto · Answer 8 · 2015-07-01T10:44:02.347

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I had also the same problem and finally I could overcame it.

Solution Explorer → Right click on project → Properties → Web tab → Project Url

I have chosen another port number, and every things became fine!

edited Jul 01 '15 at 10:44

answered Dec 28 '14 at 12:01

frogatto

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score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Jul 14 '17 at 07:42

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I opened my web.config file, and found and removed this section:

<authorization>
  <deny users="?" />
</authorization>

and my site came up, but there are issuues with the authentication..

answered Jul 14 '17 at 07:42

kfn

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Okay, It helped to resolve the issue but now I have some other issues that I need to fix. – Jamshaid K. Nov 28 '19 at 07:47

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Sep 22 '15 at 20:47

None of the above had worked for me. This had been working for me prior to today. I then realized I had been working with creating a hosted connection on my laptop and had Shared an internet connection with my Wireless Network Connection.

To fix my issue:

Go to Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network Connections

Right click on any secondary Wireless Network Connection you may have (mine was named Wireless Network Connection 2) and click 'Properties'.

Go to the 'Sharing' tab at the top.

Uncheck the box that states 'Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection'.

Hit OK > then Apply.

Hope this helps!

score 0 · Answer 11 · edited Apr 07 '14 at 16:40

I just fixed this exact problem in IIS EXPRESS fixed it by editing the application host .config to the location section specific to the below. I had set Windows Authentication in Visual Studio 2012 but when I went into the XML it looked like this.

the windows auth tag needed to be added below as shown.

<windowsAuthentication enabled="true" />

<location path="MyApplicationbeingDebugged">
        ``<system.webServer>
            <security>
                <authentication>
                    <anonymousAuthentication enabled="false" />
                    <!-- INSERT TAG HERE --> 
                </authentication>
            </security>
        </system.webServer>
</location>

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered May 14 '14 at 14:39

I've been struggling with this problem trying to create a simple App for SharePoint using Provider Hosted.

After going through the applicationhost.config, in the section, basicAuthentication was set to false. I changed it to true to get past the 401.2 in my scenario. There are plenty of other links of how to find the applicationhost.config for IIS Express.

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered May 12 '16 at 21:51

I didn't see this "complete" answer anywhere; I just saw the one about changing port numbers after I posted this, so meh.

Make sure that in your project properties in visual studio that project url is not assigned to the same url or port that is being used in IIS for any site bindings.

I'm looking up the "why" for this, but my assumption off the top of my head is that both IIS and Visual Studio's IIS express use the same directory when creating virtual directories and Visual Studio can only create new virtual directories and cannot modify any that IIS has created when it applies it's bindings to the site.

feel free to correct me on the why.

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Sep 27 '16 at 13:14

Our error page was behind the login page, but the login page had an error in one of the controls, which creates an infinite loop.

We removed all the controls from the offending page, and added them back one by one until the correct control was located and fixed.

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Jul 04 '20 at 01:08

0

In my case (ASP.NET MVC 4 application), the Global.asax file was missing. It was appearing in Solution explorer with an exclamation mark. I replaced it and the error went away.

answered Jul 04 '20 at 01:08

Moses Machua

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IIS Express gives Access Denied error when debugging ASP.NET MVC

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