This is actually on the same installation with the runaway server processes - this may or may not be related to that issue.

Since we were encountering the extra processes in COM, I thought a quick fix might be to just switch them to File mode. We've tried that as a short term (or in some cases long term) fix when running in to COM issues on other sites, and it's proven to be quite robust and reliable. A critical part of that has been the ability to load File servers automatically whenever the site is restarted, but we're not seeing that happening at this location. I can't get the servers to load unless I manually Load File Servers from the Status Page.

I verified that we have this set in web.config:

<add key="AutoStartServers" value="True" />)

Shouldn't that cause it to load file servers on demand whenever a request is made?

--stein

Yes AutoStartServers should start the instances, but the host process (IIS ApplicationPool) needs to have the rights to be able to load them. Remember if IIS loads them they won't be visible - they might be running but they're not visible, so the admin page or task manager will show them.

+++ Rick ---