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Fix: ASP.NET Web Deploy ‘ERROR COULD NOT CONNECT TO REMOTESVC’ error


I was playing around with deploying an ASP.NET application to a server using Web Deploy in Visual Studio 2012 and I go this annoying little error.  I’d fill out the dialog for publishing via Web Deploy and when I’d click “Validate Connection” it would run and eventually fail.  The problem turned out to be “user error” obscured by a misleading error message.  (Scroll to the bottom for the fix.)

image

When I clicked on the “Failed (click for details)” link, it would show me the following:

Could not connect to the remote computer (“servername”) using the specified process (“Web Management Service”) because the server did not respond.  Make sure that the process (“Web Management Service”) is started on the remote computer.  Learn more at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=221672#ERROR_COULD_NOT_CONNECT_TO_REMOTESVC.  The remote server returned an error: (550).

 image

That link in the error message take you here and that page walks you through verifying that you can 1) ping the remote machine, 2) verify that the msdepsvc or wmsvc services are started, and 3) that the firewall isn’t blocking ports 80 or 8172. 

I tried pinging the server from my developer machine and it worked.

image

I checked the Web Deployment Agent Service (msdevsvc) and the Web Management Service (wmsvc) and they were both running.

image

I checked the Windows Firewall and (being someone who’s not one to leave anything to anything to chance and favors the brute force approach) turned the Firewall off entirely. 

SNAGHTML3f140ac

Everything seemed to be set up properly but the error remained.  Maybe it’s user error.  Hmmm. 

The Fix.

I started looking at the values that I was typing into the dialog and that Site name one was bothering me.  Did I have that value right? 

image

The site name field relates to the name of the Internet Information Server (IIS) site instance name on the server.  I logged onto the target server and opened up the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager console.

I expanded the nodes until I saw the list of sites and it turns out that it’s not “defaultwebsite” but instead it’s “Default Web Site”. 

image

I went back to the Web Deploy Publish Web dialog, changed the values and clicked Validate Connection.

image

This time it worked. 

Summary

The ERROR_COULD_NOT_CONNECT_TO_REMOTESVC error message could indicate that you’ve typed the IIS site name value in incorrectly.  Verify the site name on the target server in IIS Manager and try again.

-Ben

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85 responses to “Fix: ASP.NET Web Deploy ‘ERROR COULD NOT CONNECT TO REMOTESVC’ error”

  1. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Hey thankyou so much for publishing this. Saved me so much time. Such a simple change.

  2. Ian Day Avatar
    Ian Day

    Thanks Ben – that fixed my issue.

  3. Param Avatar
    Param

    Thanks 🙂 Worked like a charm!

  4. Marcel Avatar
    Marcel

    Thousand thanks! You saved me! The MS documentation could be much better on this.

  5. Nick Avatar
    Nick

    Thank you, I’ve been trying to figure this out all night.

  6. zipor Avatar
    zipor

    Great article, plain and simple, and most important – it helped!

    Thanks!

  7. 100000000 Avatar
    100000000

    thanks 🙂

  8. Ricky Avatar
    Ricky

    Excellent Blog post Ben, I’ve spent the last few hours trying to figure this out and your blog post explained exactly what was wrong. Great Job.

  9. Gustavo Avatar
    Gustavo

    Thanks! I’ve been struggling with this error for a couple days.

  10. Sunny Avatar
    Sunny

    Big thanks, really saved my time digging through the various sites and Googling a lot!

  11. Marc Ziss Avatar
    Marc Ziss

    I had the Web Management Service installed but didn’t have the WebDeploy installed. Thanks to your great summary; I figured out which piece I was missing.

  12. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Spent hours on this. I prefix my site names with an ID in IIS, and neglected to include that on the form. The error message sent me hither and yon and I never really looked at that field.

    Thanks a bunch!

  13. SunnyCase Avatar

    Very great article, spent hours on this.

  14. Ronak Avatar
    Ronak

    Thanks lot More than handy.
    spent lot of time behind on this finally resolved
    God bless.

  15. Ken Avatar
    Ken

    Thanks! That helped me out!

  16. Pawel Avatar
    Pawel

    Great Article! Thanks! It has saved a lot of troubleshooting!

  17. Alexander Avatar
    Alexander

    Thank you very much. I spent 2 hours until found your article.

  18. Mike Godfrey Avatar
    Mike Godfrey

    Thank you so much for taking the time to document your fix – not sure I would have discovered the solution otherwise. A great help!

  19. Adam Bull Avatar

    Haha thank you so much for this! I was putting my domain name in hoping that IIS would detect the matching bindings! Obviously not that smart!

  20. Mike Avatar

    Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!!!

  21. Sangeeth Avatar

    Thanks a lot! I had the same issue!!

  22. Alex Avatar
    Alex

    Thank you

  23. M Avatar
    M

    Thanks for this …

  24. JOrdi Avatar
    JOrdi

    Thanks so much guy!! I had the same issue U_U.

  25. Vincent Saelzler Avatar
    Vincent Saelzler

    Thanks so much!
    Had the exact same issue and this fixed it.

  26. Lord Ayvar Avatar
    Lord Ayvar

    You save me from about three months of failed builds 🙂
    Thank you!!

  27. Chee Xiong Avatar
    Chee Xiong

    Thanks!

  28. Luke Avatar

    Spot on. In fact, the issue I had was that you have to create the web site in IIS before you can publish. I thought it would be created automatically. Thanks.

  29. YL Avatar
    YL

    This helps a lot! I had same exact issue. Saved me tons of time! Thank you!

  30. myhelper Avatar
    myhelper

    Thanks.

  31. RJ Avatar
    RJ

    Awesome job, Ben! Thanks for your help!

  32. Christian Rios Avatar

    Gracias! Last thing I tried before I got it to work 🙂

  33. WLAD Avatar
    WLAD

    Thanks !

  34. huib Avatar
    huib

    thx! worked and saved me a lot of time!

  35. To Ka Avatar
    To Ka

    Thank you!

  36. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    Thanks for the detailed post. I was struggling to find the solution and thankfully found your post.

  37. Tony Avatar
    Tony

    Ben – Thank you and well done! I wasted a couple of hours checking firewalls and what not. Glad I found your post.

  38. The Dawg Avatar
    The Dawg

    YOU ARE A GOD!! I struggled for an hour with this, checking all kinds of firewall settings. Thank you for this post.

  39. chessnute Avatar
    chessnute

    Thanks Man! great tip!!!

  40. Rick Guillen Avatar

    I guess I’m one of the few people that are still getting this error, even when I changed the “Site Name” field to Default Web Site. I checked all of the issues listed above.

  41. Luis Fernando Sousa Santos Avatar
    Luis Fernando Sousa Santos

    Thank you!!

  42. Dimitar Avatar
    Dimitar

    You’re the man!

  43. Farlop Avatar
    Farlop

    Thank you!!!

  44. Hugo Avatar
    Hugo

    You’re the man! I had to add the site name after Default Web Site\sitename and voila.
    Thanks

  45. Rafal Avatar
    Rafal

    In my case the problem was different – I have specified correct IIS site name, but I have made a mistake while specyfying the port number of remote Azure server.

  46. Mariano Avatar
    Mariano

    Thanks a lot!! it’s save mi a lot of time…
    As we say here in argentina “You are groso!”

  47. alex Avatar
    alex

    sweat~

    u saved my life

  48. Sudarshan Avatar
    Sudarshan

    Thank you!

  49. DrJ Avatar
    DrJ

    Thanks for the tip.
    I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
    You saved me a lot of time !

  50. Matt Avatar
    Matt

    Thank you!!!!!!!

  51. rafal Avatar
    rafal

    Thx very much 🙂
    You saved me a lot of time and time and time ! 🙂

  52. Harleen Avatar
    Harleen

    Thank You !

  53. Álvaro Avatar

    Thanks from Spain.

    You saved me more time.

    Regards.

  54. tailSpike Avatar

    Thank you thank you thank you!

  55. Steve Perry Avatar
    Steve Perry

    Thanks, you rock!

  56. David R Avatar
    David R

    The post that keeps on giving. Your 2013 post lives on and benefits many. Thank you

  57. Semih Avatar
    Semih

    Thanks worked, you save my time !

  58. ThankYou Avatar
    ThankYou

    Thank you for this!!!

  59. Filippo Avatar

    Thank you for your really useful tip!!!

  60. Jose Casal Avatar
    Jose Casal

    Thanks a lot man. Finally after 5 hours looking around.

  61. Ben Gichamba (@gichamba) Avatar

    I owe you a beer, my friend!

  62. Mark S Avatar
    Mark S

    Plain, simple, fixed. Thank you!

  63. Vinit Avatar
    Vinit

    Thx. Got exactly what i was looking for.

  64. Cesar Avatar
    Cesar

    Thank you! You hit the nail right on the head.

  65. Shaun Avatar
    Shaun

    Thank you ! Can’t believe the error message is so vague and unhelpful.

  66. João Avatar
    João

    One more! Thanks!

  67. James Hendrix Avatar

    I have spent most of my Sunday (at least 6 hours) fighting this issue. I can’t even begin to count the number of docs I have gone thru trying to resolve this issue. Your solution fixed my issue. Many thanks

  68. Sanjay Murthy Avatar
    Sanjay Murthy

    Super, it worked; What a mis-leading error from microsoft; Thanks !

  69. Kees Avatar
    Kees

    Thank yo for publlishing this. The error is misleading and it did cost me moren then an hour to start looking elsewhere. I found your site and this worked. THANKS.

  70. Jack Simone Avatar

    Great. You help me to solve the issue. I use shared hosting on asphostportal and it is working. Thank you

  71. Austyns Avatar
    Austyns

    Thanks alot. Finally, after two days of googling

  72. hansoky Avatar

    Thanks a lot, error message is confusing 🙂

  73. Osman Hamdi Kayar Avatar
    Osman Hamdi Kayar

    Thank you, saved my day!

  74. John Delano Avatar

    Thank you! Saved my day!

  75. JACOBO GONZALEZ CANO Avatar
    JACOBO GONZALEZ CANO

    Thank you very much Ben! Great work!

  76. Chris Hinch Avatar
    Chris Hinch

    Thank you so much Ben! Seven years and still going strong – outstanding!

  77. Amit Thakur Avatar

    I get pleasure from, cause I found exactly what I used to be looking for. You’ve ended my 4 day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. website

  78. Adrian Hayes Avatar
    Adrian Hayes

    You just resolved 3 days of troubleshooting. THANK YOU! Where’s your “Buy me a beer” link?

  79. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    My god. Thank you SO much. I was starting to question my sanity.

  80. Travis Avatar
    Travis

    2022 and you saved me hours of hair pulling I’m sure

  81. Robbie Margot Avatar
    Robbie Margot

    Great information, Ben! You help to fix my issue. I’m deploying Asp.net on Asphostportal shared hosting environment using WebDeploy and I receive above error message. I found your blog and this helped to solve my issue.

    Thank you

  82. SodaMIX Avatar
    SodaMIX

    Thank you

  83. GHYew Avatar
    GHYew

    Great. Thank you

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