While Debugging IIS from VS2008 Website Is Unresponsive

Question

I have a web app running in a local instance of IIS 7.5. My app pool has it Maximum Worker PROCESSES at 3. When I go to Vs2008 and attach my debugger to my local IIS I see three w3wp.exe processes as expected. I attach to all three. When I run a web page my breakpoint hits in my code behind, as expected.

Here's the problem: in my code behind my C# code is calling a service on another computer that in turn sends a request back to my local IIS box. This is all synchronous. The problem is that while I'm in the debugger it seems like that remote code's call to my IIS box is immediately failing. If I go on to that remote box while I'm debugging and try to pull up any URL from my local box it hangs. And, as soon as I hit F5 in VS2008 the browser frees up and fulfills the request.

So why does the VS2008 debugger cause IIS to not use any of the other worker processes to service other incomming requests?

Thanks for any ideas.

Answer 1

While you debugging any process - all the threads hangs.

So what you're describing is expected behavior. You're debugging a thread in IIS, the whole process hangs until you press F5 and return the control to the process.