Fix COMADMIN_E_PROCESSALREADYRECYCLED (0x80110812)

You're working in Component Services, trying to recycle a COM+ application that's hung or misbehaving. You right-click the app, select Shut down, then Recycle — and bam, you get the error COMADMIN_E_PROCESSALREADYRECYCLED (0x80110812). This usually happens after a previous recycle attempt didn't fully complete, or the process got stuck in a half-killed state. It's common when an ASP.NET app or a third-party service tied to COM+ freezes up on Windows Server 2016, 2019, or even Windows 10 Pro.

What's actually happening?

The COM+ runtime tracks each application process by a unique instance ID. When you recycle, it kills the old process and spawns a new one. But if that old process already got recycled (maybe by a timed policy or an earlier manual shutdown), the instance ID goes stale. So when you try to recycle again using that stale reference, COM+ says "that process is already gone, can't recycle it twice." It's not a crash — it's the system telling you there's nothing left to recycle.

The real fix: Release and restart

You don't need to reboot the server or reinstall anything. The trick is to release the COM+ application's hold on the process, then start it fresh. Here's how, step by step.

Open Component Services.
Press Win + R, type dcomcnfg, hit Enter. This opens the Component Services console.
Navigate to your COM+ application.
In the left pane, expand Component Services > Computers > My Computer > COM+ Applications. Find the app that gave you the error. It's usually the one listed in your IIS application pool or the one you've been troubleshooting.
Check if the app is still running.
Right-click the app and look at Status. If it says Running, skip to step 4. If it says Not Running, you're already behind the error — jump straight to step 6.
Shut down the application properly.
Right-click the app, select Shut down. Wait 10-15 seconds. You should see the status change to Not Running. If it hangs on "Shutting down..." for more than 30 seconds, move to step 5.
Force release via command line.
Open an elevated Command Prompt (right-click Command Prompt, choose Run as administrator). Run this command:
```
taskkill /f /im dllhost.exe
```
This kills all COM+ host processes. Don't worry — Windows restarts them automatically when needed. After running it, go back to Component Services and refresh (press F5). The app should now show Not Running.
Start the application fresh.
Right-click the app, select Start. Wait for the status to show Running. This creates a brand-new process with a clean instance ID.
Now you can recycle normally.
With the fresh process running, right-click the app, choose Shut down, then Recycle. This time it should work without the error.

Still getting the error?

If 0x80110812 keeps popping up, check these:

Application pool recycling conflicts. If you're using IIS, make sure the application pool's recycling settings aren't overlapping with your manual recycles. Go to IIS Manager, find your app pool, open Advanced Settings, and check the Recycling section. Disable timed recycling if you're doing it manually.
Antivirus or security software. Some security tools block COM+ process creation. Try temporarily disabling it to see if that's the culprit.
Corrupt COM+ registration. If none of this works, the COM+ application might be corrupted. You can export the application from Component Services (right-click > Export), delete it, then re-import it. This rebuilds the registry entries clean.
Event Viewer logs. Open Event Viewer, go to Windows Logs > Application, look for errors from source COM+ or MTSAdmin. The details often point to the exact DLL or class that's stuck.

I've seen this error most often on Windows Server 2019 running older ASP.NET apps that use COM+ transactions. The release-and-start approach fixes it 9 times out of 10. That last time? It's usually a corrupted application needing a re-import.

One last thing: don't confuse this with COMADMIN_E_CANT_RECYCLE (0x80110813), which means the app isn't configured to support recycling at all. That's a different fix — you'd need to enable recycling in the app's properties under the Pooling & Recycling tab. But that's a guide for another day.