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An application pool exceeds time limits during shutdown in IIS

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An unexpected runtime error may be thrown when an application pool exceeds time limits during shutdown in Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS).

Original product version:   Internet Information Services 7.0, 7.5
Original KB number:   2634635

Symptoms

On a computer that's running IIS 7.0 or 7.5, the message will look similar to the following example:

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-WAS
Date: 1/1/2011 12:00:00 AM
Event ID: 5013
Task Category: None
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description:
A process serving application pool DefaultAppPool exceeded time limits during shut down. The process id was 1111.

Cause

This message is logged to the event log when an application pool takes longer than the configured ShutdownTimeLimit property to shut down. When this time limit is exceeded, the worker process will be forcibly shut down and recycled. And the event log message will be created.

It's possible this message will appear in the event log without any negative observed behavior to end users browsing the web sites hosted in that application pool. However, the presence of the event suggests one of the following conditions is true:

  • The ShutdownTimeLimit is set to too low of a number.
  • A problem has occurred in the web application that is hindering it from shutting down in a timely manner.

Note

The default value of the ShutdownTimeLimit configuration property in IIS is 90 seconds.

To resolve this problem, choose one of the following methods.

Resolution 1: Increase the ShutdownTimeLimit value

It's possible that the default ShutdownTimeLimit value was modified from its default value of 90 seconds. An application pool needs time to fully shut down, as any requests currently processing when the shutdown is started and needs to be given a certain amount of time to complete. Setting the ShutdownTimeLimit value too low may cause these erroneous event log warnings in high traffic web applications or in web applications that have requests that are expected to take some time to complete.

To modify the ShutdownTimeLimit value in IIS 7.0 and IIS 7.5, see Process Model Settings for an Application Pool <processModel>.

Resolution 2: Troubleshoot why the application pool isn't shutting down in a timely manner

As mentioned earlier, it's possible that something is going on in the application pool. So it can't shut down in a timely manner. One of the more common problems is when existing HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests aren't able to complete. To troubleshoot why the application pool is taking too long to shut down, capture a memory dump of the w3wp.exe process in which the application pool is running, when the shutdown problem is occurring.

For more information on capturing memory dumps of IIS processes, see Debug Diagnostics Tool v1.2 is now available.

More information

Configuring Recycling Settings for an Application Pool (IIS 7)