Visual Studio with outdated AzureFunctionsCli

Axel B Andersen 106

We develop lots of Azure Functions Apps. Recently, we onboarded a new junior developer, who was tasked with debugging some new functions. The developers machine was setup with Visual Studio 2022 downloaded from the official site and installed for funning Azure Functions development.

Unfortunately the developer was not able to debug the function, and the error was something like:

[2023-03-24T15:01:51.102Z] A host error has occurred during startup operation '7bb9656f-036b-48ee-9bbd-0c3db50612ab'.

[2023-03-24T15:01:51.104Z] Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs.Extensions.Storage.Blobs: Could not load type 'Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs.ParameterBindingData' from assembly 'Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs, Version=3.0.34.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'.

The code worked well on 2 other developers installation and after some digging, it turned out, that it was the runtime version of Azure Function Core Tools that was the issue.

The tricky part was, how to update the Azure Function Core Tools. Digging around on the internets lead to this article: https://weblogs.asp.net/sfeldman/updating-azure-functions-tools - The junior developer had never created a new function, so that was the first thing to try. Unfortunately that did not update the Azure Function Core Tools.

Instead the developer downloaded the newest zip file referenced in feed-v<sequence-number>.json, unzipped it and replaced the content in C:\Users\UID\AppData\Local\AzureFunctionsTools\Releases\4.34.0\cli_x64 with the contents of the zipfile. That did the trick! Now the debugger in visual studio runs as expected.

The question is: Isn't there a better way to force an update of Azure Function Core Tools then this? This manual approact or braying that a new function creation will update the tools seems a bit brittle.

MuthuKumaranMurugaachari-MSFT 22,151 Reputation points

2023-03-31T13:52:01.24+00:00

Agazoth Thanks for posting your question in Microsoft Q&A. If you have installed MSI on Windows for Core Tools, then we need to uninstall old version from Add/Remove Programs and reinstall the newer version as per Changing Core Tools versions.

However, I found we also need to delete C:\Users***\AppData\Local\AzureFunctionsTools folder as well before reinstalling the newer version (both MSI as well as npm). I will open an issue in docs to update the instructions accordingly and let you know. I hope this helps with your question and let me know if you have any other.
Andy Becker 0 Reputation points

2023-03-31T19:43:56.1566667+00:00

I started getting this from an existing function following a package upgrade, which I historically never attempt any time I am close to a deadline, for exactly this reason.

During the build Visual Studio (17.5.3) reports:

Ensuring Azure Functions Core Tools are up to date. This may take a few minutes...

Azure Functions Core Tools are up to date.

...and then at runtime I get the exact same error as above, loading the function.

There is no Azure Function Core Tools in my Add/Remove programs, and no node/npm in the path of my VS Developer Command Prompt or PowerShell. My Local/AzureFunctionsTools/Releases folder indicates 4.35.0 as the newest by version, but curiously the timestamp on this folder is OLDER than the prior versions.

This is really heart breaking, all I did was follow the recommended practice (for once!) of keeping everything up-to-date, and now I am broken as hell and missing a deadline. My mistake.

Sadly, rolling back the changes (that goodness for version control!) changed nothing. Running the function reports Core Tools 4.0.4829 and Function Runtime 4.11.2.19273.
MuthuKumaranMurugaachari-MSFT 22,151 Reputation points

2023-03-31T19:56:42.7333333+00:00

Andy Becker Very sorry to hear that. I would like to let you know that there is open discussion related to this issue https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-net/issues/34467#issuecomment-1475964022.

Would you be able to upgrade to the latest version Core Tools@4.0.5095 and validate? If you still face the issue, please share the details in the thread and we can engage product team to assist you further on this. Sorry for the inconvenience caused by this.