(I know, stale question, but it's unanswered & came up in my own Google search on the subject.)
Refer to the following article from Microsoft Support:Application Initialization module fails when web site requires SSL (KB2843964). Quote:
Cause
This behavior is by design.
Resolution
To workaround this limitation, you may consider enabling HTTP (uncheck the "Require SSL" setting in IIS Manager/SSL Settings) and use a URL Rewrite rule to redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS with the exception of the request coming from the warmup module :
<rewrite><rules><rule name="No redirect on warmup request (request from localhost with warmup user agent)" stopProcessing="true"><match url=".*" /><conditions><add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="localhost" /> <add input="{HTTP_USER_AGENT}" pattern="Initialization" /> </conditions> <action type="Rewrite" url="{URL}" /> </rule> <rule name="HTTP to HTTPS redirect for all requests" stopProcessing="true"> <match url="(.*)" /> <conditions> <add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" /> </conditions> <action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}" /> </rule> </rules> </rewrite>Gotta love "This behavior is by design." Sigh. Sadly, the top search results I found about this Application Initialization feature fail to mention this limitation — unless one interprets "HTTP request" as strictly meaning non-secure requests.