I realize that this error should be among the most straight-forward to diagnose, but I've gone through the possible causes and everything checks out.
I am attempting to do a Web Deploy of an ASP.NET Core site from VS 2017 to WinServ 2012R2 (on AWS) IIS 8.5.
The first resolution is to make sure the Web Management Service is running on the remote machine, it is:
Windows PowerShell
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PS C:\Users\Administrator> net start msdepsvc
The requested service has already been started.
More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 2182.
The next resolution is to make sure a firewall is not interfering. The target server is an AWS instance and I have verify that my security group is allowing "All Traffic" from my workstation's IP.
So I'm at a bit of a lose as to why this isn't deploying.