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I was using the free evaluation of Windows Azure Virtual Machines to see if my company could switch from our local cloud service providers to a Windows Azure. Today I've exceeded the usage limit (forgot to stop/delete one spurious VM created for testing only). The main VM was disconnected and its disk stored in storage account (which didn't exceeded the limit, as this is, after all, a test and usage is very low). Since I need the disk, and most importantly, the data inside it as it has performance information and even some production data that should never have ended up on that test VM, but... anyway, I'm not being able to:

1) Reuse the old DNS. Even the VM being removed, when I try to create a new one and select the old DNS it tells me the old DNS is already in use (xpihomo.cloudapp.net)

2) I can't create a virtual machine, it keeps getting me errors like this: "The server encountered an internal error. Please retry the request. The long running operation tracking ID was: 9439ecfa765c4d6d94bd9238a6e579a1."

UPDATE 2: I've deleted the Cloud Services, now I can reuse the DNS, but I still can't recreate the VM. It now gives this error: A lease conflict occurred with the blob https://portalvhds4bqgghbw63gp9.blob.core.windows.net/vhds/lucasoft-eval-eval-vm-2012-10-25.vhd. The long running operation tracking ID was: 97c64baeebce4c2d8e4a3c9661ef0130.

I'm also very disappointed that I only have a forum to ask for guidance and support. And can't imagine how I would proceed if this issue involved sensitive information? Post it on a forum for everyone to see?

And even worse: the forum software insists on using pt-br as its locale (I'm from Brazil) and in the pt-br forums there is no Virtual Machine Preview dedicated forum! I've posted this same message there but I'm not hoping to get any answers.

Does anyone know what may be going on that is preventing the VM creation?

And, as an extra question, does anyone know if Amazon services suffer from the same (lack of) support issues?

UPDATE: I've found an answer for (1):

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/pl-PL/WAVirtualMachinesforWindows/thread/ba1c873d-d86f-48aa-8ab2-98a058b7fdcd

When the VM instance is deleted the Cloud Service used to run it is not deleted automatically, and it keeps a hold on the DNS. If you want to reuse the same DNS you'll have to delete the cloud service entry... But would it delete the data from my VM? I don't think so, as it is stored in a separate VHD, but I just can't take the risk right now of deleting it...

Loudenvier
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1 Answers1

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I was able to resolve this issue by a very dirty, dirty route. Since it seemed that a lease conflict was preventing the VM from being mounted (certainly a bug in Azure's VM implementation) I've resorted to downloading a tool to manage the storage account and then I've copied the pertinent disk to another image and it worked. Here are the steps taken:

  1. Downloaded CloudXplorer evaluation (I'll certainly buy a license, because they've saved my skin) http://clumsyleaf.com/products/cloudxplorer
  2. Connected to my storage account (using the keys informed in the web portal manager)
  3. Browsed to my storage and to the vhds container (the two VM disks were there, the one that worked and the one that didn't)
  4. created a new folder inside it named it 'Teste'
  5. copied the pertinent disk
  6. pasted the copied disk to the Teste folder
  7. Renamed the disk on the 'Teste' folder to something I want
  8. Cut the renamed disk from the 'Teste' folder
  9. Pasted the renamed disk back into the vhds 'root'
  10. Logged into the cloud management and went to Virtual Machines > Disks
  11. Used (+) CREATE DISK and choose the renamed disk above in the popup dialog
  12. Make sure to check "OS Disk" option and Windows.
  13. Created a new VM from the gallery, choosing my disk and using the above disk
  14. The VM was created succesfully

Needless to say that this was a bug in Microsoft Azure: they've kept a lease to a disk that was not used anymore.

The workaround works, but it certainly is a stain on the name of Windows Azure and its reliability and support team.

Loudenvier
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  • PS. their paid support is fine for you know, people using it in production ;) Also, deleting the VM and the cloud service doesnt delete the VHD, that is a separate process. – cillierscharl Nov 12 '12 at 22:21
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    @f0x I don't think their support is anything great. When you acquire a paid product you expect some sort of support, not community-based support. I'm a paying subscriber now. I never wanted to delete the VHD. It was a bug in their production environment which left a lease on the disk containing the VHD. I had two VMs and only one was affected by the bug. Copying the VHD using a third-party manager worked around the problem. But one ask why there is no functionality on the management portal to allow you to do such simple operations. – Loudenvier Nov 12 '12 at 22:30
  • I said deleting the vm and cloud service WONT DELETE your vhd and thus it would've released the lock and solved your issue. I don't think you even tried to find support because I have used them before and NOT the community; I got help in 1 hour from an Azure expert. https://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?gprid=14928&st=1&wfxredirect=1&sd=gn&ln=en-us Next time try to find something before you bash it. – cillierscharl Nov 12 '12 at 22:34
  • @f0x You are making wrong assumptions. I've emailed local support (I'm in Brazil), I've opened question on their forums (the only way to get support). I was forced into using the local (Brazilian) forums. All to no avail. The VMs were deleted by Azure itself when my limit was reached, I've deleted ALL CLOUD SERVICES when the DNS problem occurred. Still the lease was not lifted from the VHD I needed to restore. In fact, it has not been released yet. I was only able to make it work after doing the above workaround. I'm not a child to bash services without a reason as you made it sound. – Loudenvier Nov 12 '12 at 22:42
  • Did you even open the link I posted? It will put you in contact with an Azure technical resource. – cillierscharl Nov 12 '12 at 22:45
  • What probably happened is that when Azure deleted the VMs it failed to release the lease on one of its VHDs and now I have a orphaned VHD with an active "phantom" lease. Using the workaround above made it work because I've copied the VHD to another file, which, of course, has no active lease into it... I hope this helps someone in the same situation. This generated a very serious PR problem for me since the site wasn't running when I needed it for a presentation to a customer. Now it is 21:00 and I'll try to ameliorate the friction tomorrow. – Loudenvier Nov 12 '12 at 22:47
  • @f0x yes, I did open it. But try to get to it at: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/contact/ If you follow https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/preview-support/ you'll notice that support for preview features is only forum based. Also, when I'm logged in, I'm always redirected to pt-br forums which don't even have a dedicated Virtual Machines subforum. AS I've said: you've made some wrong assumptions regarding my rants. I was not being irresponsible. – Loudenvier Nov 12 '12 at 22:50
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    No, you just didn't even bother looking. Here is that same screen. You were one step away. http://i.imgur.com/W1u4d.jpg – cillierscharl Nov 12 '12 at 22:53
  • sorry about the rant; hope you are successful in your future presentations! – cillierscharl Nov 12 '12 at 23:07
  • @f0x I saw that link you provided in the screenshot, but it was not related to VMs so I didn't bother using it! :-( – Loudenvier Nov 13 '12 at 00:35