Identifying IIS Application Pool Credential Issues

A password change on (any of the) application server(s) may require an update of the IIS configuration.

Background

During installation of an on-premises implementation, PowerShell scripts run on the application server (or, in a multi-server implementation, on each of the component servers in turn) ask you to provide credentials for the application pools used within IIS for FlexNet Manager Suite. The scripts save these as part of the IIS configuration.

Note: If, as recommended, you have used a service account (suggested: svc-flexnet) for this purpose, it is very unusual to require a password change for such an account. If you used a normal user account, you require this additional maintenance each time that the password on that account is changed.

If, at any time after installation, the password for this user account is updated, the IIS configuration is now out of date, and IIS will refuse to run the application pools for FlexNet Manager Suite.

Tip: In this case, as well as IIS configuration, you may also need to update passwords on scheduled tasks and on services. For a complete list, see Password Maintenance.

Diagnosis

First symptom: The web interface for FlexNet Manager Suite will not load, producing the following error:

HTTP Error 503 - Service unavailable

Investigation: If you examine the Microsoft IIS application pools, you will find that the application pool for FlexNet Manager Platform is disabled after any attempt to run the web interface. An examination of the IIS log file shows entries like the following:

server-name  5057  Warning Microsoft-Windows-WAS  System  date time
Application pool FlexNet Manager Platform has been disabled. Windows Process Activation 
Service (WAS)did not create a worker process to serve the application pool because the
application pool identity is invalid.

server-name  5059  Error  Microsoft-Windows-WAS  System  date time
Application pool FlexNet Manager Platform has been disabled. Windows Process Activation
Service (WAS) encountered a failure when it started a worker process to serve the
application pool.

server-name  5021  Warning Microsoft-Windows-WAS  System  date time
The identity of application pool FlexNet Manager Platform is invalid. The user name or
password that is specified for the identity may be incorrect, or the user may not have
batch logon rights. If the identity is not corrected, the application pool will be
disabled when the application pool receives its first request.  If batch logon rights
are causing the problem, the identity in the IIS configuration store must be changed
after rights have been granted before Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) can
retry the logon. If the identity remains invalid after the first request for the
application pool is processed, the application pool will be disabled. The data field
contains the error number.

Repair

Update the credentials for the applications pool on each of your application servers, using the process in Update Credentials in IIS Application Pools.