Keep getting a "Start operation is not allowed on Virtual Machine. Please check error details."

Question

Keep getting "Start operation is not allowed on Virtual Machine. Please check error details." error as soon as I attempt to allocate the VM. Although this VM is a spot vm, I have been able to allocation (start) it on regular basis in the past till about five days ago.

What have changed? How do I diagnose?

Answer 1

Hi Half Cloudhill,

If you're receiving an 'Error: Start operation is not allowed on Virtual Machine.' on a Spot Virtual Machine. Spot Error Codes can be found here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/error-codes-spot

Spot VMs are a type of VM that may be deallocated or interrupted when there is insufficient capacity in the region or if the price for spot VMs increase beyond your specified limit. If the capacity in the region has changed or if there's high demand for resources, the VM will not start.

You can check the "Activity Log" in the Azure portal for any error details related to the start operation.

Please find the below similar issue for your reference:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/599275/failed-to-start-virtual-machine-i-am-getting-this

If it was helpful, please click "Upvote" on this post to let us know.

Thank You.

Answer 2

Hi @Half Cloudhill , I understand you're using Azure Spot VM and now you can't start it.

Spot VMs can be stopped if Azure needs capacity for other pay-as-you-go workloads or when the price of the spot instance exceeds the maximum price that you have set. When creating an Azure Spot Virtual Machine, by default, eviction policy is set to Deallocate.

The Deallocate policy moves your VM to the stopped-deallocated state, allowing you to redeploy it later. However, there's no guarantee that the allocation will succeed. If you try to restart a stopped/deallocated VM, Azure will first check whether there is capacity and quota, then VM is deployed.

Since you can't start the VM, possibilities:

• Price of the spot instance exceeds the maximum price that you have set. Check the price and increase your maximum price higher than current spot instance price. [turns out this is the reason for your issue]
• Azure Spot doesn't have capacity for your requested VM type. Try changing the VM type.
• You don't have quota. Check your quota and request an increase, if needed.

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