The server failed to load application '/LM/W3SVC'. The error was 'The specified metadata was not found.'.

I have spent probably 4 hours of my life trying to figure out why I keep getting a bizarre error message when I try to browse to a .NET 2.0 Framework Web Service, so after figuring it out I thought I would post this so I never forget it. The solution to the problem was so simple but it took a long time to find it. So what happened:

1. Browse to web service, get the following message: Server Application Error
2. Looked in the event log, which had the following message:

The server failed to load application '/LM/W3SVC'.  The error was 'The specified metadata was not found.'.

3. Searched for that problem and found this: http://www.iis-resources.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2579&forum=4
Now in this post they were talking about the MSDTC so I cheked that service and found that it wasn't started, so I try to start it, this fails to start with error message:

The Distributed Transaction Coordinator service terminated with service-specific error 3221229584 (0xC0001010).

4. Searched for that problem and found this: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/solution-microsoft-distributed-transaction-coordinator-fails-to-start-with-service-specific-error-3221229584/
Now this post says run msdtc -resetlog

5. Problem solved. Hopefully other people will find this helps them, it sure helped me.

12 Comments

  • Thank u very much. It is very helpful.

    When I did not find your link, I got the information from internet just said to re-install everything. But it still can not work, except re-install Windows.

  • Didn't work for me.

  • Just nice to see this error message talked about at all. Windoze it so damn confusing and integrated all at the same time.

  • This is excellent and worked like a charm although at the end, I had to uninstall/reinstall iis for some reason?

    Either way, excellent post!

  • I had the same problem. I run XP SP2. I ultimately traced the problem to COM+ specifically "COM+ System Application" service not being able to start. I guess DTC or any com+ related issue will cause the same with IIS. I solved it by re-registering COM+ dlls with the commands:
    "regsvr32 oleaut32.dll" and "regsvr32 ole32.dll

  • You do not have to re-install, just run the following three commands from the %windir%
    \system32\inetsrv directory

    rundll32 wamreg.dll, CreateIISPackage
    regsvr32 asptxn.dll
    iisreset /restart

  • YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RE-INSTALL

    Run the following three commands from the %windir%
    \system32\inetsrv directory

    rundll32 wamreg.dll, CreateIISPackage
    regsvr32 asptxn.dll
    iisreset /restart

  • YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RE-INSTALL

    Run the following three commands from the %windir%
    \system32\inetsrv directory

    rundll32 wamreg.dll, CreateIISPackage
    regsvr32 asptxn.dll
    iisreset /restart

  • thanks friends! it is alive!!

  • Thanks so much, it worked for me and it sounds like this saved me a lot of time as this was one of the first pages I hit when looking for a solution to my problem !

  • The last solution worked perfectly. Thank you.

  • Run the following Commands

    C:\Winnt\system32\inetsrv>rundll32 wamreg.dll, CreateIISPackage

    C:\Winnt\system32\inetsrv>regsvr32 asptxn.dll

    C:\Winnt\system32\inetsrv>iisreset

    This should Resolve the problem

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