App_offline.htm file does not work

app-offline.htmdeploymentiis-7

I have been battling with this for ages now but I just can not get it to work.

Every blog/site I have been too says there is nothing you need to do in IIS but this cannot be correct as there are multiple website configurations such as Application, virtual directory, simple php/asp websites, vitual.

Can someone please explain to me what the setup needs to look like in IIS7.

I have:

Checked the file spelling: app_offline.htm
Made sure the file was at least 512 bytes (saw this on a random site)
Made sure it is in fact in the root of the application/website
Checked that I can browse directly to the file
Made sure the application pool framework was set to v2.0 or v4.0
Made sure the above application pool was assigned to my website
Tried this in a new website in IIS where the app_offline.htm was the only file in the root.

I have multiple websites set up that I have tested with, namely:

MVC3 Web Application
PHP Simple Website
Classic ASP Simple Website
Webforms Website
Webforms Application
Virtual folders in the above sites
Applications within the above sites

All of the above are working, and placing the app_offline.htm does absolutely nothing.

Please can someone provide some clarity.

Best Answer

I recently had the same issue with the app_offline file and the real problem I had was that windows was set to hide known file extensions. So when the file app_offline.htm was created I thought that the name was correct, but windows was hiding the extension .txt.

Related Solutions

ASP.NET 2.0 – How to use app_offline.htm

I have used the extremely handy app_offline.htm trick to shut down/update sites in the past without any issues.

Be sure that you are actually placing the "app_offline.htm" file in the "root" of the website that you have configured within IIS.

Also ensure that the file is named exactly as it should be: app_offline.htm

Other than that, there should be no other changes to IIS that you should need to make since the processing of this file (with this specific name) is handled by the ASP.NET runtime rather than IIS itself (for IIS v6).

Be aware, however, that although placing this file in the root of your site will force the application to "shut down" and display the content of the "app_offline.htm" file itself, any existing requests will still get the real website served up to them. Only new requests will get the app_offline.htm content.

If you're still having issues, try the following links for further info:

Scott Gu's App_Offline.htm

App_Offline.htm and working around the "IE Friendly Errors" feature

Will app_offline.htm stop current requests or just new requests?

Asp.net-mvc – Custom app_offline.htm file during publish

I know this is old but since I found a solution after looking here I thought I should provide an answer. VS 11 holds the publishing app_offline.htm file in this location:

C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\app_offline.htm

I have tested this and customized it and it does work if you change this file. The down side, of course, is that this is the file used for all web publishing.

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