SharePoint 2013: How to Increase Shutdown Time Out on Central Administration Application Pool

Description

The Process Model, Shutdown Time Limit setting determines how long a worker process is allowed to stay alive.  The default value is 90 second, however, if a process does not finish in time, it will be shutdown.  In a sluggish environment that does not have adequate RAM, then it is common to see issues when interacting with Central Administration.

For example, when creating a Web Application using Central Administration, the process may only partially complete before it is shutdown, leaving a Web Application in Central Administration, a content database in SQL Server, a Virtual Directory folder in the file system, but no corresponding Web site in IIS.  In this case, you have to delete the Web Application from Central Administration and recreate it.


Solution

If possible, meet the minimum hardware requirements for RAM (Microsoft TechNet, 2014).

Additionally, it is possible to increase the value of the Shutdown Time Limit to allow Central Administration more time to process the types of changes that are prone to timeout in an environment that is resource-challenged.

To make this configuration change, open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager and then expand the server node and click on Application Pools.

Right-click the SharePoint Central Administration Application Pool and select Advanced Settings.

The default Shutdown Time Limit (seconds) is 90.

 Increase the Shutdown Time Limit (seconds) as you see fit.  The example below shows the setting at 480 seconds.

References

Microsoft TechNet (2014).  Hardware and software requirements for SharePoint 2013.  Retrieved February 14, 2014 from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262485.aspx