Unable to launch the ASP.NET Development server because port is in use.

Bumped into an interesting problem today. My ASP.Net Development server would not start because the port was apparently in use. I though this was very strange and tried another port, and this one was also in use. Starting to suspect spyware I was getting worried. I finally remember that I had installed ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

ESET comes with a little HTTP firewall as well. So easy right? Just disable the firewall, WRONG!!! Error was still occuring. So after googling for a bit I found my problem. I was right, ESET was to blame, but I hadn’t approached the situation from correct angle. To fix the situation you need to add Visual Studio to a “safe list” so that ESET doesn’t block it.

To unblock Visual Studio do the following: open ESET and click setup -> advanced firewall setup -> antivirus & anti spyware -> web access protection -> HTTP -> webbrowsers. ESET will then show a list of Applications, find VS2008/2005 in the list and deselect it. Save your changes and close the setup window.

And there we go, VS2008′s buildt in Dev Server will now work again!

6 Comments

  1. Jørn Andre
    Posted June 22, 2009 at 12:42 PM | Permalink

    Hi FailBoy !

    I had the same problem – and this fixed it. Even though I’ve had the same type of problems before – firewall blocking ports and such – the message in VS put me a bit offtrack.

    Thanks!

  2. FailBoy
    Posted June 22, 2009 at 1:18 PM | Permalink

    Great to hear it worked for you as well! Keep well!

  3. Posted July 7, 2009 at 12:31 PM | Permalink

    Something similar also happens if Skype starts and IIS hasn’t been started and then you try and start IIS – sometimes Skype will use port 80. Pain in the butt to figure out if you don’t realise what happened.

  4. saul mendoza
    Posted November 5, 2009 at 10:40 PM | Permalink

    I had the same problem and it works fine for me!! Thanks!! Thanks!!

  5. Posted February 17, 2010 at 3:12 PM | Permalink

    Dear Sir,
    Tanx A million, I worked for us too.

  6. tom
    Posted March 16, 2010 at 8:30 AM | Permalink

    Thanks a lot! Worked for me too

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