Newly Provisioned Windows 11 VM Stuck in Reboot Loop

Question

I'm trying to provision a Windows 11 VM (using the Pro N image) in East US. I'm able to RDP into the VM pretty much immediately after initially creating it, however if I reboot it at any point, even after making no changes within the guest OS, it enters into an endless reboot loop and the VM is no longer accessible at all.

When this occurs, the Boot Diagnostics screenshot never updates past a point prior to the first reboot, so it provides no useful information.

Here is the resource JSON (2024-11-01):

{
    "name": "***redacted***",
    "id": "/subscriptions/***redacted***/resourceGroups/***redacted***/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/***redacted***",
    "type": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines",
    "location": "eastus",
    "tags": {
        "Client": "***redacted***"
    },
    "properties": {
        "hardwareProfile": {
            "vmSize": "Standard_F32as_v6"
        },
        "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
        "vmId": "***redacted***",
        "additionalCapabilities": {
            "hibernationEnabled": false
        },
        "storageProfile": {
            "imageReference": {
                "publisher": "microsoftwindowsdesktop",
                "offer": "windows-11",
                "sku": "win11-24h2-pron",
                "version": "latest",
                "exactVersion": "26100.4349.250607"
            },
            "osDisk": {
                "osType": "Windows",
                "name": "***redacted***",
                "createOption": "FromImage",
                "caching": "ReadWrite",
                "managedDisk": {
                    "storageAccountType": "StandardSSD_LRS",
                    "id": "/subscriptions/***redacted***/resourceGroups/***redacted***/providers/Microsoft.Compute/disks/***redacted***"
                },
                "deleteOption": "Delete",
                "diskSizeGB": 127
            },
            "dataDisks": [
                {
                    "lun": 0,
                    "name": "***redacted***",
                    "createOption": "Attach",
                    "caching": "ReadOnly",
                    "writeAcceleratorEnabled": false,
                    "managedDisk": {
                        "storageAccountType": "Standard_LRS",
                        "id": "/subscriptions/***redacted***/resourceGroups/***redacted***/providers/Microsoft.Compute/disks/***redacted***"
                    },
                    "deleteOption": "Detach",
                    "diskSizeGB": 256,
                    "toBeDetached": false
                }
            ],
            "diskControllerType": "NVMe"
        },
        "osProfile": {
            "computerName": "***redacted***",
            "adminUsername": "***redacted***",
            "windowsConfiguration": {
                "provisionVMAgent": true,
                "enableAutomaticUpdates": false,
                "patchSettings": {
                    "patchMode": "Manual",
                    "assessmentMode": "ImageDefault",
                    "enableHotpatching": false
                },
                "enableVMAgentPlatformUpdates": true
            },
            "secrets": [],
            "allowExtensionOperations": true,
            "requireGuestProvisionSignal": true
        },
        "securityProfile": {
            "uefiSettings": {
                "secureBootEnabled": true,
                "vTpmEnabled": true
            },
            "securityType": "TrustedLaunch"
        },
        "networkProfile": {
            "networkInterfaces": [
                {
                    "id": "/subscriptions/***redacted***/resourceGroups/***redacted***/providers/Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/***redacted***",
                    "properties": {
                        "deleteOption": "Delete"
                    }
                }
            ]
        },
        "diagnosticsProfile": {
            "bootDiagnostics": {
                "enabled": true
            }
        },
        "licenseType": "Windows_Client",
        "timeCreated": "2025-06-11T19:29:47.3380636+00:00"
    },
    "etag": "\"3\"",
    "zones": [
        "3"
    ]
}

These are a sample of the entries in the Resource Health logs:

Unavailable (Customer Initiated) : Reboot initiated from inside the machine (Customer Initiated)
At Wednesday, June 11, 2025 at 1:43:24 PM MDT, the Azure monitoring system received the following information regarding your Virtual machine:
The Virtual Machine is undergoing a reboot as requested by a restart action triggered by an authorized user or process from within the Virtual Machine. No other action is required at this time.
---
Machine crashed (Customer Initiated)
At Wednesday, June 11, 2025 at 1:43:37 PM MDT, the Azure monitoring system received the following information regarding your Virtual machine:
The Virtual Machine is undergoing a reboot due to a guest OS crash. The local data remains unaffected during this process. No other action is required at this time.
---
Reboot initiated from inside the machine (Customer Initiated)
At Wednesday, June 11, 2025 at 1:43:37 PM MDT, the Azure monitoring system received the following information regarding your Virtual machine:
The Virtual Machine is undergoing a reboot as requested by a restart action triggered by an authorized user or process from within the Virtual Machine. No other action is required at this time.

These continue to loop ad nauseam until the VM is stopped and deallocated again, but occasionally I might also see this in the Resource Health logs in the middle of the reboot loop:

Redeploying due to host failure (Unplanned)
At Wednesday, June 11, 2025 at 2:01:24 PM MDT, the Azure monitoring system received the following information regarding your Virtual machine:
We're sorry, your virtual machine isn't available and it is being redeployed due to an unexpected failure on the host server. Azure has begun the auto-recovery process and is currently starting the virtual machine on a different host. No additional action is required from you at this time.

The reboot loop simply continues even after the above message, starting with the guest OS crash message.

Things I have tried with no success:

• The Redeploy option
• The Reapply option
• Re-creating and provisioning the VM
• Re-creating the VM in another availability zone (tried 1 and 3)
• Re-creating with Automatic OS Updates disabled
• Re-creating using Windows 10 Pro N
• Using the Serial Console (nothing happens, can't enter any input)
• Recreating the VM using a different name (just in case of any weirdness from having tried multiple times using the same name)

Also of note is I have a nearly identical VM provisioned and working in East US 2 without any issues, though that one was set up several months earlier.

Would appreciate any suggestions.

Answer 1

I saw the recommendation in other threads (e.g., https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2283657/who-or-what-fixed-my-virtual-machine) to disable the vTPM. So far that has resolved the issue for me as well.

Answer 2

Hi Dave Sutherland,

If you're currently using a v6-series VM, try resizing it to a v4 or v5 series instead. This resolved the issue for some others in the community.

Please check: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2282881/azure-vm-stuck-in-updating-status