Region not loading when trying to create a VM on free account

Question

Good day

I have been experiencing issues trying to create a VM in the free services page.

https://portal.azure.com/#create/microsoft.freeaccountvirtualmachine-windows
When trying to select a region to create the vm in the region field shows but never stops loading, I have been retrying every hour for about 2 days

Please let me know if this feature is still available. I am in the process of trying this feature out so that I can add the subscription to our company account.

Just a follow-up question when I do get this running: According to the message box, on a free account you have 750 hours per month to use the free VM's and will be charged for any hours above 750, according to me this will always be free because 24hours*31days=744hours.

So taking that into consideration does this just apply to having multiple VMs on one free account that has their hours joined together? The link does not provide much information on this topic specifically.

Thank you in advance for your answers :)

Answer 1

The issue you are experiencing could be due to a temporary problem with the Azure portal or the region you are selecting.

To troubleshoot the issue, you can try clearing your browser cache and cookies or using a different browser or device. Additionally, attempting to select a different region or using Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell to create the VM may also resolve the issue.

Regarding your follow-up question, you are correct that if you only use the free VM for 24 hours per day for 31 days, you will not exceed the free 750-hour limit. However, it's important to note that other Azure services you may use alongside the VM, such as storage or networking, may also consume free usage hours. Therefore, it is recommended to keep track of your usage to avoid unexpected charges.

Answer 2

I'm happy to help! The Azure site may be temporarily down, or the region where you're trying to construct the VM may be suffering some service disturbance, if the problem still exists and you're unable to choose a location.

In that situation, I advise checking the Azure status page at https://status.azure.com/en-us/status to see if the region you're trying to utilize has any known issues. If there are no known difficulties, you might want to get help from Azure support. They ought to be able to assist you with problem-solving and troubleshooting.

Answer 3

Both free and subscription-based virtual machines can be created using a similar procedure. The primary distinction is that, in order to access more features and resources with subscription-based VMs, you must have a current Azure subscription linked to your account.

It's conceivable that the Azure CLI is not set up properly to utilize the correct subscription or tenant if you tried to establish a resource group and got an error. You can confirm this by executing the command "az account list" This command will show you a list of all the Azure subscriptions associated with your account. Make sure that the subscription you want to use to create the VM is listed and set as the active subscription. You can set the active subscription by running the following command: "az account set --subscription <subscription-id>" Replace <subscription-id> with the ID of the subscription you want to use.

If you're still having issues, you may want to contact Azure support for further assistance. They should be able to help you troubleshoot and resolve any issues you're experiencing. I'm on mobile right now, so I can't type as easily. Please let me know if this solves your issue

Answer 4

Regarding your question, the main difference between creating free VMs and subscription-based VMs is that for free VMs, you're limited to a certain amount of usage hours per month, whereas for subscription-based VMs, you'll be charged for the usage based on the plan you've subscribed to. It's possible that the Azure CLI is not correctly configured to use the right subscription or tenant, which could be causing the issues you're facing. To check the current subscription and tenant, use the az account show command. If the subscription is incorrect or you're not associated with the right tenant, use the az login command with the --tenant parameter to log in to the correct tenant, followed by the az account set command to set the active subscription. Once the correct subscription has been set, you should be able to create the resource group and VM using the Azure CLI.

Answer 5

Hello, @Ayomide Oluwaga and @Hannu Opperman !

Why isn't my region loading when trying to create a VM in the portal using a free account?

There was a bug a while back affecting free and student subscriptions where the subscription wasn't loading in the portal. While not exactly the same, it may be related:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/732559/subscription-drop-down-bar-not-loading-when-creati

@Hannu Opperman , if you can provide a session ID we can investigate this further on our end:

Collecting Session IDs

1. Open Developer Tools on your browser (typically F12)
2. Go to the Network tab
3. Attempt to create a VM (reproduce the subscription dropdown issue)
4. Filter "batch"
5. Click on batch?...
6. Under Request Headers, get the x-ms-client-session-id