Resolve read configuration data from file ‘\\?\’, line number ‘0’ issue in IIS

When we perform automated deployment to IIS, sometimes we encounter 503 errors with following message in EventLog 

Trying to read configuration data from file ‘\\?\<EMPTY>’, line number ‘0’

As a solution, I opened the command prompt (not PowerShell) as administrator and executed following commands

1. net stop WAS /y
2. rmdir /s /q C:\inetpub\temp\appPools
3. net start W3SVC 

This resolved the error 

How to periodically send IIS Logs with custom fields to SQL Server database

Recently I wanted to push IIS logs to SQL database for analytics purpose.

Following are the steps I used

Step 1: Configurations at IIS side

Add custom fields as shown below

Step 2: Create a table in SQL Server database with following columns

Step 3: Construct following PowerShell scripts

a. RemoveLogs.ps1 - This will remove existing logs in working directory and clean up for new logs

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
 
Import-Module Pscx -EA 0
 
function RemoveLogFiles
{
    Write-Host "Removing log files..."
    Remove-Item ($httpLogPath1)
}
 
function Main
{   
 
    [string] $httpLogPath1 = "E:\TempLogs\*.log"
     
    RemoveLogFiles 
 
    Write-Host -Fore Green "Successfully removed log files."
}

b. CopyLogs.ps1 - This will copy Logs from IIS log file location to our logs directory. I'm copying everything created during last two days

$Date = Get-Date
$Date = $Date.adddays(-2)
$Date2Str = $Date.ToString("yyyMMdd")
 
$Files1 = gci "\\IIS-01\LogFiles\W3SVC4"
ForEach ($File in $Files1){
     $FileDate = $File.creationtime
     $CTDate2Str = $FileDate.ToString("yyyyMMdd")
     if ($CTDate2Str -eq $Date2Str) {Copy-Item $File.Fullname "E:\TempLogs"}
}

c. CopyLogsToDB.ps1 - This will import logs to our SQL Server database table

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
 
Import-Module Pscx -EA 0
 
function ImportLogFilesServer(
    [string] $httpLogPath)
{
    If ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($httpLogPath) -eq $true)
    {
        Throw "The log path must be specified."
    }
 
    [string] $logParser = "${env:ProgramFiles(x86)}" `
        + "\Log Parser 2.2\LogParser.exe "
 
    [string] $query = `
        [string] $query = `
        "SELECT" `
            + " LogFilename" `
            + ", RowNumber" `
            + ", TO_TIMESTAMP(date, time) AS EntryTime" `
            + ", s-ip AS ServerIpAddress" `
            + ", cs-method AS Method" `
            + ", cs-uri-stem AS UriStem" `
            + ", cs-uri-query AS UriQuery" `
            + ", s-port AS Port" `
            + ", username  AS Username" `
            + ", c-ip AS ClientIpAddress" `
            + ", cs(User-Agent) AS UserAgent" `
            + ", pageurl AS Referrer" `
            + ", sc-status AS HttpStatus" `
            + ", sc-substatus AS HttpSubstatus" `
            + ", sc-win32-status AS Win32Status" `
            + ", time-taken AS TimeTaken" `
            + ", storename  AS StoreName" `
        + " INTO IISLog" `
        + " FROM $httpLogPath"

 
    [string] $connectionString = "Driver={SQL Server Native Client 11.0};" `
        + "Server=DB-01;Database=IISLogs;Trusted_Connection=yes;"
 
    [string[]] $parameters = @()
 
    $parameters += $query
    $parameters += "-i:W3C"
    $parameters += "-e:-1"
    $parameters += "-o:SQL"
    $parameters += "-createTable:ON"
    $parameters += "-oConnString:$connectionString"
 
    Write-Debug "Parameters: $parameters"
 
    Write-Host "Importing log files to database..."
    $logParser 
    $parameters
    & $logParser $parameters

}
 
 
function Main
{
    [string] $httpLogPath = "E:\TempLogs\*.log"
 

    ImportLogFilesServer $httpLogPath
 
#Repeat above for all other server
 
    Write-Host -Fore Green "Successfully imported log files."
}
 
Main

Step 4: Apply a schedule using Task Scheduler

This will upload latest logs including custom fields to SQL Server database.