Unknown: The object identifier does not represent a valid object. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800710D8)
While testing an IIS automated build, I noticed the following error when I opened IIS Manager after configuring IIS7 with a Shared Config that I imported from an existing server.
I don’t recall having run into this before so it threw me for a few minutes. But after doing a little digging I was able to quickly get it resolved.
Checking the Application Event Log I found the following error which referred to Microsoft Web Deploy being referenced in the administration.config. The administration.config contains the modules and settings used by the IIS Manager application, and given that the configuration seemed functional, this seemed like the right track.
The server where I had exported the IIS7 config from had Microsoft Web Deploy installed and I had not (and did not want to) install it on the new server. I opened Shared administration.config and removed the highlighted lines, which enable Web Deploy.
After performing an IISReset and reopening IIS Manager I was back in business. This type of error is likely to happen if you install any type of IIS addin on a server and then move the config to another server that does not have the addin installed or possibly even has a different version of the addin. Of course the other way to resolve this is to install the necessary addins. Personally I like to keep the IIS footprint as light and portable as possible, but if you have business reasons, make sure the addins are part of your build process. I have not validated this, but I’m sure this error would occur on IIS 8 and IIS 8.5 as well.
