MVC Site getting 500 error only on server, how do I get more info on error?

Question

I have an MVC 5 web application that runs perfectly fine in VS when I debug it but the moment I deploy to my IIS server (Windows 2012 R2) I get a 500 internal server error. I have even enabled debug=true in the web.config on the server but get no detailed error. Nothing is showing in the event log I have restarted the web site in IIS and recycled the app pool with no change. What do I have to do to figure out what is not working on the server side?

Answer 1

While I did not find exactly what was wrong. I ended up rebuilding my site from the group up and in doing so I did figure out that it was something to do with the web.config but there is so much of the web.config file I left out of the new site I don't know the exact code in it that caused the problem.

Answer 2

By default, IIS hides debug information from remote connections. This means you need to log on to the server and browse the site there, or you need to turn off Custom errors in your web.config (change from RemoteOnly to Off).

Many kinds of configuration errors in IIS however, will only show up properly if you browse on the server.