Port 8000, PID 4, not able to kill, taskill /f /pid 4, Access Denied

Question

I am not able to kill process bound to 8000 port, due to which I am not able to start HTTP server. This is in reference to question Start HTTP/HTTPS server, python -m SimpleHTTPServer

C:\>taskkill /f /pid 4
ERROR: The process with PID 4 could not be terminated.
Reason: Access is denied.

Even killing by below is not working which I found somewhere.

C:\>taskkill /f /s localhost /pid 4
ERROR: The process with PID 4 could not be terminated.
Reason: Access Denied.

PID 4 is system process, what might be running on there, how do I stop it, why are other ports is a similar fashion listening.

C:\>netstat -ab

Active Connections

  Proto  Local Address          Foreign Address        State
  TCP    0.0.0.0:135            garg10may-PC:0         LISTENING
  RpcSs
 [svchost.exe]
  TCP    0.0.0.0:443            garg10may-PC:0         LISTENING
 [vmware-hostd.exe]
  TCP    0.0.0.0:445            garg10may-PC:0         LISTENING
 Can not obtain ownership information
  TCP    0.0.0.0:902            garg10may-PC:0         LISTENING
 [vmware-authd.exe]
  TCP    0.0.0.0:912            garg10may-PC:0         LISTENING
 [vmware-authd.exe]
  TCP    0.0.0.0:8000           garg10may-PC:0         LISTENING
 Can not obtain ownership information

Run your command prompt as administrator. – g4ur4v Sep 21 '14 at 06:39 — g4ur4v, Sep 21 '14 at 06:39
Yes, logined as administrator only – garg10may Sep 21 '14 at 06:40 — garg10may, Sep 21 '14 at 06:40

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 20 '17 at 16:37

8

if you're in Windows this might help you, the port 80 is usually being used by this service: "World Wide Web Publishing Service", open "Services" in the Control Panel and stop it

answered Jan 20 '17 at 16:37

Gonza Piotti

707
10
10

Also known as Web Deployment Services – Catalina Fernández Jan 03 '21 at 00:17

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 21 '17 at 03:18

As per python documentation the http.server module can also be invoked directly using the -m switch of the interpreter with a port number argument. Similar to the previous example, this serves the files relative to the current directory.

python -m http.server 8000

In case your port 8000 is already is being used just change it to another no.

python -m http.server 5000

It's not a good idea to arbitrarily just kill processes and more over system processes.

Burhan Khalid · Answer 3 · 2017-01-21T05:26:06.653

1

Don't do this - there is a reason why you are not able to kill it, because you didn't start it. Instead pass another port number:

For Python 3:

python -m http.server 8080

For Python 2:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8080

edited Jan 21 '17 at 05:26

answered Sep 21 '14 at 07:28

Burhan Khalid

169,990
18
245
284

Yes able to start on another port, but still curious what might be running on that port and it that case also I should be able to kill that. – garg10may Sep 21 '14 at 10:55

Port 8000, PID 4, not able to kill, taskill /f /pid 4, Access Denied

3 Answers3