Visual Studio 2012: WebDev.WebServer40.exe has stopped working

Question

I am working on a very large MVC4 project.

Windows 7 64 bit, .NET Framework.4.5, Visual Studio 2012 Premium SP1

I work in a corporate environment and every night machines are updated. On 4/22 I left my machine on with VS running but not executing any code. On 4/23 in the morning I continued where I left off the night before. Machine response time seemed to be slow, so I rebooted. After the reboot I began getting this message when trying to debug:

Popup in VS: WebDev.WebServer40.exe has stopped working Web page: This page can't be displayed

Fiddler displayed this message:

[Fiddler] The connection to 'localhost' failed. Error: ConnectionRefused (0x274d). System.Net.Sockets.SocketException No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it [::1]:51043

The Windows Application log displays this error:

Faulting application name: WebDev.WebServer40.exe, version: 11.0.50727.1, time stamp: 0x5011ca7e Faulting module name: ole32.dll, version: 6.1.7601.17514, time stamp: 0x4ce7b96f Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x000408a7 Faulting process id: 0x280 Faulting application start time: 0x01cf60dbe460d837 Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DevServer\11.0\WebDev.WebServer40.exe Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\ole32.dll Report Id: 22f43805-cccf-11e3-866d-00270e269f58

NOTE: It looks like ole32.dll is implicated. Checking, I discovered that there is a known error in several versions, however, none of those versions exactly match 6.1.7601.17514 so I have been cautious about replacing it.

Working with networking engineers I determined that the issue is within VS. The app will run with Ctrl-F5 and WebDev.WebServer40.exe appears in the list of processes. Using F5 WebDev.WebServer40.exe appears briefly in the list of processes, then disappears as the error appears. Summoning the app from the browser works, too, however if I use F5 to try and debug WebDev.WebServer40.exe disappears from the list of processes.

I have tried the following:

• Repaired .NET Framework 4.5.1
• Cleared Visual Studio's temporary files
• Operated other apps to determine if the cause is in the app. All other apps on my machine fail in the same way
• Deleted browser cookies
• Added/subtracted localhost entries in the Hosts file
• Attempted to repair VS 2012 but that generates an error messages: (1) log files full and (2) some features were not installed

My associates and I are out of ideas and I am ready to completely uninstall VS2012 and reinstall, with all the time, effort and risk that entails unless someone else has a clearer idea of what might be happening and how to fix it.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Answer 1

Even i got the same error message in my application of MVC4 "webdev.webserver40.exe has stopped working" and throwing an stack overflow exception. then you need to go through the code,check for the spellings used for proporties. change the spellings and check.

Answer 2

Thanks to Anthony and AlaN for your suggestions. It's important to check off possibilities with an error as vague as this one.

Microsoft support found the issue using the tttracing utility. A malware application had created a folder that contained: aecbbldsrvrc.dll.

...appdata\local\exction\aecbbldsrvrc.dll

That dll was getting added to the mix of dlls used for debugging. How that happens, I haven't a clue, yet. A Google search for aecbbldsrvrc.dll returns a lot of commentary.

And, btw, since I have disabled IPV6 and QOS on the network adapter I have noticed an improvement in network speed, thank you, Anthony!

Answer 3

1. Run SFC /Scannow
2. Reset IE via Tools>internet oprions>advanced >reset
3. Remove Temp ASP.net files (see: Can I safely delete the Temporary ASP.Net folder's contents?)

I had many "funny" issues worth my environment recently that wasn't even solved worth the win 8.1 update. The above tips solved my issues.

Update: I have also found this today:

Fix .NET 4.5/ 4.5.1 issues with Microsoft .NET Framework Repair Tool 1.2 http://betanews.com/2014/04/29/fix-net-4-5-4-5-1-issues-with-microsoft-net-framework-repair-tool-1-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed+-+bn+-+Betanews+Full+Content+Feed+-+BN

Answer 4

I found this article on the Microsoft forum.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/ro-RO/b2e47862-a7be-45c9-9569-c6e045bcda7d/webdevwebserver40exe-stops-responding-when-launching-specific-aspnet-web-app?forum=vsdebug

Maybe this is a problem worthy of posting on the ASP .NET forum? http://forums.asp.net/