VM stuck on Updating status

Question

We have a VM which seems to be stuck in Updating status. How can I work out what's wrong and how to fix it?

Answer 1

Hello @Simon Cannon,

Thank you for your patience while we investigated the issue. Our team has confirmed that it has now been fully resolved.

The root cause was identified as a firmware misconfiguration in Underhill VMs, which resulted in TPM-related file corruption and VM failures. A hotfix has been applied to prevent this issue in all newly created v6 VMs. For existing affected VMs, the recommended steps are to either disable the vTPM and restart the VM or recreate the VM.

A permanent fix was deployed on June 16, 2025, at 4:00 AM UTC. Customers have been informed and can now safely re-enable the vTPM where applicable. If you found this informative, please consider accepting an answer as a token of appreciation. And don't forget to give it a thumbs up 👍 if it was helpful.

Answer 2

Thanks Palmer, that was the issue. We managed to fix it by disabling TPM. See here: https://app.azure.com/h/ST9K-JQZ/f1bedb

Answer 3

Hi Simon Cannon

Thanks for using the Q&A platform.

If your Azure VM is stuck in the "Updating" status, it usually indicates that the platform is in the middle of a management operation that has stalled or is taking unusually long.

Kindly go through the step-by-step guide provided here to diagnose and resolve the issue: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/discussions/compute/azure-vms-stuck-at-status-unknown-or-updating-solution/3821385

You can mark it 'Accept Answer' and 'Upvote' if this helped you

Regards,

Obinna.

Answer 4

Hello @Simon Cannon,

If your VM remains stuck in the "Updating" status, start by restarting it via the Azure Portal or using PowerShell commands to refresh its state. If the problem persists, check for potential disk space issues or try removing specific directories related to the VM's extensions before restarting the agent.

A Windows VM doesn't start. When you check the screenshots in the Boot diagnostics window, you see that the startup is stuck in the update process.

Depending on the number of updates that are getting installed or rolled backing, the update process can take a while. Leave the VM in this state for 8 hours. If the VM is still in this state after that period, restart the VM from the Azure portal, and see if it can start normally. If this step doesn't work, try the following solution- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/windows/troubleshoot-stuck-updating-boot-error?source=recommendations

I would recommend check the logs and metrics to identify any specific errors or issues that could be causing the VMs to be stuck in an unknown or updating state.

If you have any further queries, do let us know.