How do I prevent IIS from compiling website?

+1 A:

Try to disable application recyling in the configuration of the page or application pool in the IIS.

IIS 6 (If i remember correctly): Rightclick on AppPool -> Tab "Performance" -> Uncheck "Shut down working process on idle time"

IIS 7.5 There is property (seems to be an appPool settings too) that shuts down the AppPool after X minutes of idling time. The value 0 is equal to "never shut down"

Hope this helps

citronas 2010-03-01 21:27:02

Thanks for this, I was around this area, but I just made Recycle timeout super long. It didnt seem like a good idea, cause I figure I do want the threads to recycle so IIS doesnt run out of threads. Try this, lets see if it works

xximjasonxx 2010-03-01 21:43:18

Did our test this morning and startup hit its longest yet, 35s to respond. So no good, thanks for the suggestion though

xximjasonxx 2010-03-02 13:44:43

First startup after deployment, or first startup after a period of non using?

citronas 2010-03-02 17:15:57

Both, but what we are thinking is that with normal usage and some extension of the recycle period, we should be able to cover the case 98% of the time

xximjasonxx 2010-03-02 18:10:08

+2 A:

Have you tried using aspnet_compiler in the framework folder (e.g. %SYSTEMROOT%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727)?

You can control ASP.NET recycling via the settings on the Application Pool. If it is recycling more often than the settings then something else is causing that (e.g. changes to the web.config etc.)

Thomas 2010-03-01 21:29:11

What can I look for in the web.config that might be contributing to the problem?

xximjasonxx 2010-03-01 21:44:31

Any change to the web.config file will cause ASP.NET to recycle the app pool. So, if there is code that is altering the web.config file that would definitely do it. The first place to look however is the application pool recycling settings. If those are all off and the app is recycling, then something else is forcing a reset of the application pool (or IIS itself).

Thomas 2010-03-01 22:15:19

Right, but what I am worried about is if I set the thread recycle too high, I might run out of threads. Thoughts on that point?

xximjasonxx 2010-03-02 04:01:15

ASP.NET uses the thread pool by default. That pool has 25 per processor if memory serves. That means for you to exhaust the pool, you have to be spawning more than 25 threads simultaneously on a single processor machine. Once a thread is discard, it returns the pool to be reused by .NET until some threshold is hit in which case it will kill the thread. When you recycle the pool, you dump the worker process and all threads that were running. If the worker process hits the max on the thread pool, other requests wait until a thread is available.

Thomas 2010-03-02 05:52:14

You know, it occurs to me that thread pool exhaustion might be the issue here. Each web service call is going to use a thread from the pool. If you have lots of request to lots of services or services that are slow, you might be exhausting the pool. Have you tried increasing the number of worker threads on the app pool to 50 or so and see if that helps? Here is a MS article that provides more info: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=821268.

Thomas 2010-03-02 06:07:04

Here's the thing, I want to simply keep IIS running as normal and just not have it compile on the initial hit. If that means hitting it before the call is made to force compilation so be it. But i think tinkering with Recycle and Idle shutdown here is not the answer

xximjasonxx 2010-03-02 13:50:26

So apparently, as one would expect, the site is precompiled when publish is performed. What gives then? Why is there this insane spin up time?

xximjasonxx 2010-03-02 14:08:34

When you say it is precompiled, have you enabled "Generate serialization assembly" in VS? This will compile the XmlSerializers into its own DLL at runtime.

Thomas 2010-03-02 16:53:17

+1 A:

At a previous position we had similar issues with WCF services when initially spooling up we bypassed this by creating a simple program that would invoke all our web services after a deployment.

You could also use this same type of program as a keep alive service and just ping the services every 5-10 minutes etc.

Chris Marisic 2010-03-01 21:31:00

This is something that was suggested, but its a bandaid IMO. Which is not to say I wont end up using it, I just want to try other things first

xximjasonxx 2010-03-01 21:43:48

+4 A:

One alternative approach is to write a "warm-up script" which simply executes one page from your app. This will make the server spin-up for you and the next person will get a fast hit. You could also set a scheduled process to run that script occasionally (like, if you schedule the thread pool to recycle at 4 am, schedule the warm-up script to run at 4:01 am)

tgolisch 2010-03-01 21:31:03

+1 A:

You should be looking to perform precompliation as part of your build/deploy scripts.

Having a post-deployment activity to programatically request each web resource and trigger compliation seems pretty daft to me.

Thomas' answer gives the compiler, there's also a guide over at the MSDN, How to: Precompile ASP.NET Web Sites.

If you're using MSBuild then go for the AspNetCompiler Task.

(I probably would have made this a comment but I'm not yet allowed... not enough SO juice)

dwightgunning 2010-03-02 09:58:37

This seems to be along the lines of what I was looking for. Going to give it a try, thanks

xximjasonxx 2010-03-02 13:46:14

Will this affect the web services also? I already use this in my deployments using Web Deployment projects but regardless of it being precompiled there is still a definite initial load up time for the first request that I still always make sure to make the first request after deployment, it's just shorter than not doing this.

Chris Marisic 2010-03-02 13:59:32

So apparently my site is already precompiled, what gives then? Why is this thing taking 35s to come back on the initial hit?

xximjasonxx 2010-03-02 14:07:17

From the question I wasn't sure if the delay is caused by the website itself or in the secondary web service request. If you haven't done so already, pinpointing the source would be next step.

dwightgunning 2010-03-02 15:10:08

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How do I prevent IIS from compiling website?

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