Event ID 115, The service could not bind to instance
(Kristofer Gafvert, April 10, 2006)Problem
When you attempt to start a website you get an error message indicating that the address is already in use. If you look in the event log, the following error is logged:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: W3SVC
Event ID: 115
Description: The service could not bind instance 1. The data is the error code. For additional information specific to this message please visit the Microsoft Online Support site located at: http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.
Data: 0000: 34 00 00 00 4...
Solution
This error indicates that the website with ID 1 (instance number in the error message) cannot bind to the SSL port (event id 115, event id 113 refers to the non-SSL port) specified in its settings. This can occur for several reasons, for example IIS cannot bind to the port and IP address specified in the settings because another program or service is already using them, or because another website is configured to run on the very same port and IP address. A third situation when this error may occur is if one website is listening on all unassigned IP addresses (and configured to listen on a SSL-port) and all IP addresses are assigned to a website and the very same SSL-port.
IIS Manager can be used to check if all bindings are unique. In IIS Manager, right click each website and click properties. Do note that the error message indicates which website (ID) is the problematic, but if this website's bindings cannot be changed, the website it interfers with must be found. If the number of websites is large, scripting is preferable to use.
The netstat application can be used to check if another application is using the port:
netstat -ano
The output of this command will show the process ID (PID) of the application using the port, and this PID can be matched to the PID in Task Manager to find the application.