Terminating w3wp.exe after finishing debugging in Visual Studio 2012, MVC4

Question

So I am trying to debug a process in MVC4. I send the POST request, watch it manipulate the database, etc etc. However, after I have seen the information I want to see, I click "Stop Debugging". In any typical GUI .NET application, I would think that the process would terminate, but it instead continues to execute. If I make any changes in the file and try to debug again, the breakpoints will not be hit because the files are not out of date from the previously ran process which is still running. I have 2 choices at this point - let it run or kill the w3wp.exe task with the Task Manager in order to continue debugging.

I have tried to click Debug -> Terminate All, but the process still continues to execute. I know this because I attach to the process (Debug -> Attach to Process) and it pauses at one of my many breakpoints throughout its execution.

Let it be mentioned that I am using Google Chrome to send the POST requests to the Controller, so it may not be terminating because I am not using IE - however, I do think that there is a better solution then using the IE browser.

In order to work around this, I have to go into the Windows Task Manager and kill the IIS process (w3wp.exe), which seems downright messy. Any ideas?

Answer 1

If I make any changes in the file and try to debug again, the breakpoints will not be hit because the files are not out of date from the previously ran process which is still running.

Once you modify any code file you require to re build the solution and then again Debug -> Attach to Process.

Please also note that Stop Debugging does not mean that it will kill process always. It will kill only Visual Studio Web Development Server or sometime IIS Express process with Visual Studio. Here you mentioned w3wp.exe. While this process is managed by IIS.

Answer 2

Couple more graceful ways to restart your w3wp worker process:

• in command line, run "iisreset"
• in IIS Manager console, select the corresponding application pool and click "recycle"

For a graceful shutdown of a long-running business logic, try Application_Shutdown event in global.asax.

For not-so-graceful approach, ThreadPool may help you - threads on it are marked as Background and thus Windows won't wait for them to complete when main thread of w3wp exits. However this approach doesn't always work, because 3-rd party libraries (especially networking) may create non-background threads that, again, will delay shutdown.

For even faster and dirtiest, use Environment.Exit, triggered by some debugging-only event. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.environment.exit(v=vs.110).aspx