Unable to load the console with the following: "The webpage cannot be found"

Products

• Server Management Suite
• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

Having an issue opening the console with the error: "The webpage cannot be found"

The Localhost also would not load.

Environment

ITMS 8.x

 

Cause

The Windows Process Activation Service was not able to start. Because that service is a dependency of the World Wide Web Publishing Service (IIS) and IIS would not start. 

Resolution

Looked at the services and found that the World Wide Web Publishing Service was not running. When attempting to start the service, it failed to start due to a dependency. Found that the dependency, Windows Process Activation Service, would not start and threw an error of,  "Error 13: The data is invalid."

Researched that error and found a reference to a possibly corrupt configuration file, applicationHost.config. Also found that this file at C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\INETSRV\CONFIG, and it had a last modified date of two years ago. And also found backups at C:\INETPUB\HISTORY and after renaming the existing config file also replaced it with one of the backups that were a few weeks old. The services then were able to start, and the console loaded successfully.