Lightswitch deployment error: MSDEPLOYAGENTSERVICE could not be contacted

Problem

For the first time deployment of a Lightswitch application on a windows 2008 server, I received the following error message in the Visual Studio Error message panel:

Web deployment task failed.(Remote agent (URL http://bebrqsql01/MSDEPLOYAGENTSERVICE) could not be contacted. Make sure the remote agent service is installed and started on the target computer.)

Remote agent (URL http://bebrqsql01/MSDEPLOYAGENTSERVICE) could not be contacted. Make sure the remote agent service is installed and started on the target computer.

The server is a windows 2008 R2 server with IIS services and with the Lightswitch 2011 prerequisites installed as described in Configure a server to host LightSwitch (Visual Studio 2010).

 

Solution

Log on to the target server, check if the Web Deployment Agent service is started, set it to start automatically . After first time Installation server feature IIS Web server role, this service will not have been started. Start the service

Another possible cause can be that the username specified in the Publish Output tab of the Lightswitch Publish Application Wizard, does not belong to the local administrators of the Application server. Solve this by adding the user, or the group that he is in, to the local Administrators group on the application server.