Application Restarting - Configuration has changed.

[Kevin A]

The problem is that the web application mysteriously shuts down (ending all
sessions) due to a supposed 'configuration change'. By using ASP.Net Health
Monitoring we can determine that the application occasionally raises a
"Application is shutting down. Reason: Configuration changed." event during
normal application usage. The only known way to duplicate this event is to
manually save the web.config, which correctly triggers the event as
expected. Otherwise, the shutdown occurs sporadically and cannot be reliably
reproduced.

Notes:
------------------------------------
a) This is NOT the application shutting down due to the hosting environment
shutting down.
b) This is NOT due to application shutting down due to a bin directory
change.
c) No code is modifing the web.config. The file's Modification date remains
unchanged.
d) No other application or application pool is shutdown.
e) Behavior occurs sporadically and cannot be reliably reproduced.
f) All ASP.Net C# code is Framework 2.0 compliant using no obsolete or
deprecated code. Compiled in Release mode.
g) Machine.config is not being changed.
h) No virus scanners are running.
i) No excessive memory usage.
Thoughts:
------------------------------------
1) A user of the application can trigger a PDF generation which queues a
MSMQ message.
2) A Win32 service listens for these messages and directly writes a PDF
(over the course of several seconds) to the http://www.blah.com/PDF
directory.
3) While the PDF is being generated, the user sees a continuously refreshing
wait screen whilst checking another MSMQ for status.
4) A Verisign PayfloPro COM control is used to transact money through a
payment gateway.



Health Monitoring Error Information:
------------------------------------
Event code: 1002
Event message: Application is shutting down. Reason: Configuration changed.
Event time: 5/9/2006 9:54:18 AM
Event time (UTC): 5/9/2006 1:54:18 PM
Event ID: 2d0b8ea6fa674a66982b8f4f067a31c4
Event sequence: 74
Event occurrence: 1
Event detail code: 50004

Process information:
Process ID: 2948
Process name: w3wp.exe
Account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE


Platform:

 

[JasonBSteele]

Kevin,

I have exactly the same problem.

I have run FileMon from www.sysinternals.com to watch all accesses to the config files and found that the only accesses were OPEN, READ, QUERY INFORMATION and CLOSE by the w3wp.exe process.

However, during the period that FileMon was running I got a "Application is shutting down. Reason: Configuration changed." event in the event log.

So according to FileMon the config files were not touched but according to ASP.NET they were.

Did you manage to find the cause of your problem?

Thanks,
Jason