Question

So I’m trying to deploy an MVC 3 app to a web server. If I don’t include the System.Web.Mvc dll in the \bin directory, I get the configuration error saying it can’t find the assembly System.Web.Mvc, which is to be expected. However, as soon as I add the assembly, I get at 403.14 Forbidden error. I’ve tried everything from installing MVC 3 on the server to running the command: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis -ir

The app pool is set to Asp.net v4.0 integrated pipeline. Super frustrated so any other ideas would be helpful. I’ve read through all posts on SO to no avail.

Server is Windows 2008 Enterprise 32-bit. .NET 4 is installed.

Update: I’ve discovered that some role services for IIS were disabled on the server. Namely HTTPRedirection and Static Content Compression. Installing those two services allows the web app to run, but the installation actually fails and says it needs to reboot to undo the changes. After reboot, the app obviously stops working. At least I know what the issue is now. I’m going to disable some services on the server and try to install the role services again.

Answer 1

SOLVED! Hopefully this helps someone else. There were IIS Role Services that were not installed on the web server. This test server was supposed to be setup exactly like our development server, but it was not. Anyway, HTTP Redirection and Static Content Compression were not installed…among some other services. When I tried to install them, I received an installation error that would require a reboot in order to rollback the changes. I had to uninstall Windows Process Activation Service and reinstall IIS. At that point, I install ASP.NET MVC 3 and ran: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis -ir and now everything works.