Why can't I make an http request to the ASP.NET development server on localhost?
- by Chris Farmer
I have an ASP.NET project (VS2008 on Windows 7 with either webforms, MVC1, or MVC2 -- all the same result for me) which is just the File-New hello world web project. It's using the default ASP.NET development server, and when I start the server with F5, the browser never connects and I get a timeout. I tried to debug this by telnetting to the development server's port while it was running, and I got the same result:
C:\Users\farmercs>telnet localhost 54752
Connecting To localhost...Could not open connection to the host, on port 54752:
Connect failed
I can see in the system tray that the server thinks it's running, and a netstat -s -n command shows that there is indeed an active TCP listener on that port.
This worked in the not-too-distant past, and I could work on web projects using the development server. One thing that has changed since then was that I installed the Microsoft Loopback Adapter to accommodate a local development Oracle installation. I'm not sure this is the problem, but it seems a likely culprit.
So, what could be blocking me from connecting? And if it's the loopback, then what is a good way for me to retain my ability to connect to my development Oracle server while still being able to use the ASP.NET development server?