Introduction

As you run CR_Documentor, you may encounter an error telling you that the internal preview web server is unable to start. There are a few common reasons this happens. Below are those reasons and their corresponding error codes, along with information (where available) about how to fix the issue.

• Error #5 (0x5): Access Denied
• Error #183 (0xB7): Listener Already Exists

Error #5 (0x5): Access Denied

If you run Visual Studio as a non-admin user and/or the security for starting up services to listen for requests on ports has been locked down, the server may not have the proper rights to start up. This is commonly seen when running Visual Studio in Windows Vista as a non-admin user.

First, be sure you have hotfix 939786 from Microsoft applied. This fixes an issue where a non-admin user is unable to start an HTTP listener on the local machine: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939786/

If you still see the issue, then to fix this, you need to have rights to start up a listener on port 11235, the port CR_Documentor currently listens to. (You can read about configuring HTTP and HTTPS on MSDN.)

• Version 2.1.0.0 listens on http://*:11235/
• Subsequent versions listen on http://*:11235/CR_Documentor/<guid>/ where <guid> is a unique ID for the instance of CR_Documentor. (This allows multiple VS instances to be open and use CR_Documentor simultaneously.) You may be able to specify the URI http://*:11235/CR_Documentor/ in your security settings (below) if you need to be more specific/exact.

CHANGE YOUR SECURITY SETTINGS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

The Simple Fix

The easiest way to fix this is to run Visual Studio as an administrator. This gives CR_Documentor admin rights, and admins generally are allowed to start up listeners without issues. Barring that...

Windows Vista

In Windows Vista you need to use the netsh tool to configure your security to allow you to start a listener. Choose one of the following commands and run it as an administrator user.

To fix it for a single user:

netsh http add urlacl url=http://*:11235/ user={DOMAIN/MACHINE}\{USER}

Substitute in your domain/machine name and user name in the appropriate locations above. This will unlock that port for just the specified user.

To fix it for all non-admin users:

netsh http add urlacl url=http://*:11235/ sddl=D:(A;;GX;;;WD)

This will unlock that port for Everyone.

Windows XP or 2003

In Windows XP or 2003 you need to use httpcfg to configure your security to allow you to start a listener. The httpcfg tool ships with 2003 but you have to download it for XP.

httpcfg is a bit more complicated than netsh because you have to write your settings in Security Descriptor Definition Language.

To fix it for all non-admin users:

httpcfg.exe set urlacl /u http://*:11235/ /a "D:(A;;GX;;;WD)"

This will unlock that port for Everyone.

Error #183 (0xB7): Listener Already Exists

This error means that something is already listening on the port/URI that CR_Documentor wants to listen to. Since two things can't listen to the same thing at the same time, the server can't start.

If you see this when you have two or more Visual Studio instances open, you are probably using an old version of the plugin. This issue was resolved ( Issue #11 ) as of version 2.2.1.0.

If you see it with just one Visual Studio window open, it means you already have something listening on the CR_Documentor default port of port 11235. You can change the port that CR_Documentor uses for its internal web server in the ConfigurationOptions dialog.