Problem:
When adding a server to the farm, the "Windows SharePoint Services Web Application" is stuck in a starting state
Symptom:
In Central Admin, Services on Server, status is "Starting"
Solution:
From the command line:
stsadm -o provisionservice -action start -servicetype SPWebService
You will get this:
Operation completed successfully.
If this is a Web service, IIS must be restarted for the change to take effect.
To restart IIS, open a command prompt window and type "iisreset /noforce".
Service is now started and it is possible to start other services successfully.