Cannot attach debugger to w3wp

Question

I\'m debugging an ASP.NET application but sometimes cannot find w3wp neither in Visual Studio process list (Menu: Debug -> At

Answer 1

I don't how, but there appeared to be an extra application tied to the app pool I was using. Try creating a new app pool and point your application to the newly created app pool. Double check there is only 1 application with your new app pool.

Answer 2

Same thing was happening to me, when i remembered that IIS has an idle timeout! As above the proc w3wp is running, but VS2010 looks at it in the sleep state and thinks its not running, so dos'nt show it in the list...

spinning up IIS [calling a site served from locahost in your favourite web browser] reactivates IIS and suddenly VS can see the process [w3wp] now too

NOTE - must ask MS to ignore the sleep state of IIS/w3wp and if it is in sleep mode - cause it to automatically wake up!

thanks

Answer 3

THe same thing happened to me. After an update I couldnt find the W3WP! I realized that it didnt show all the processes. Checking the checkbox 'Show processes from all user' was required.