Why do I get a number in brackets on my web site project name?

Question

This is just a curiosity/annoyance and not really an issue.

I have a web forms web site project using VS 2013. Somehow, the project name includes a (1) or a (2) in the name, I have tried editing the solution file, deleting all other sites, rebuilding/cleaning etc, still cannot figure out where it gets the (2) from.

Solution File :

Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 12.00
# Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web
VisualStudioVersion = 12.0.30501.0
MinimumVisualStudioVersion = 10.0.40219.1
Project("{E24C65DC-7377-472B-9ABA-BC803B73C61A}") = "Site", "http://localhost:52806", "{5411FD57-5AFE-4A3A-9474-0DCD64C89003}"
    ProjectSection(WebsiteProperties) = preProject
        UseIISExpress = "true"
        TargetFrameworkMoniker = ".NETFramework,Version%3Dv4.0"
        Debug.AspNetCompiler.VirtualPath = "/localhost_52806"
        Debug.AspNetCompiler.PhysicalPath = "..\..\..\..\..\..\Dropbox\Projects\Site\"
        Debug.AspNetCompiler.TargetPath = "PrecompiledWeb\localhost_52806\"
        Debug.AspNetCompiler.Updateable = "true"
        Debug.AspNetCompiler.ForceOverwrite = "true"
        Debug.AspNetCompiler.FixedNames = "false"
        Debug.AspNetCompiler.Debug = "True"
        Release.AspNetCompiler.VirtualPath = "/localhost_52806"
        Release.AspNetCompiler.PhysicalPath = "..\..\..\..\..\..\Dropbox\Projects\Site\"
        Release.AspNetCompiler.TargetPath = "PrecompiledWeb\localhost_52806\"
        Release.AspNetCompiler.Updateable = "true"
        Release.AspNetCompiler.ForceOverwrite = "true"
        Release.AspNetCompiler.FixedNames = "false"
        Release.AspNetCompiler.Debug = "False"
        SlnRelativePath = "..\..\..\..\..\..\Dropbox\Projects\Site\"
    EndProjectSection
EndProject
Global
    GlobalSection(SolutionConfigurationPlatforms) = preSolution
        Debug|Any CPU = Debug|Any CPU
    EndGlobalSection
    GlobalSection(ProjectConfigurationPlatforms) = postSolution
        {5411FD57-5AFE-4A3A-9474-0DCD64C89003}.Debug|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU
        {5411FD57-5AFE-4A3A-9474-0DCD64C89003}.Debug|Any CPU.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU
    EndGlobalSection
    GlobalSection(SolutionProperties) = preSolution
        HideSolutionNode = FALSE
    EndGlobalSection
EndGlobal

Answer 1

I'm using Visual Studio 2015 and I simply deleted the .vs folder in my solution root. It contained .vs\config\applicationhost.config and .vs\mySolutionName\v14\.suo.

Editing one of those files, possibly deleting the old IIS Express binding or something, might be the pretty way of doing it. But whacking the .vs-folder and reloading solution did the trick for me.

Answer 2

You might have two sites with the same IIS binding information. This usually happens to me if I create, delete, then re-create a web site.

Find your IISExpress folder (mine is in C:\Users\brandon\Documents\IISExpress), then go to config/applicationhost.config

Find your site name with the duplicate binding and remove the <site> node. It will look something like this

<site name="WEBSITENAME" id="21">
    <application path="/" applicationPool="Clr2IntegratedAppPool">
        <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="C:\Users\...\YourProject" />
    </application>
    <bindings>
        <binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:SomePortNumber:localhost" />
    </bindings>
</site>