The virtual machine is in a failed state

Question

The virtual machine is in a failed state

Mark Windle 90

Hi. Since 2025-06-10 23:47:55 according to Azure I have been receiving the following error. I have followed both instructions with no success.My apologies on this being a duplicate post, I had the incorrect tags for the previous one.

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Anusree Nashetty 4,380 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-11T17:52:22.3366667+00:00

Hi Mark Windle,

If your Azure virtual machine is stuck in the "Updating" or "Starting" state and encounters a VMStartTimedOut error, it typically means the VM was provisioned but failed to start within the expected time frame. This issue can arise from problems with the OS boot process, prolonged Windows Updates, or communication issues with the Azure VM Guest Agent. A common indication of this is the guest agent status message stating, “VM status blob is found but not yet populated.”

To address this, start by reapplying the virtual machine from the Azure portal, which may resolve transient failures. If that doesn't work, try stopping (deallocating) the VM and then starting it again, as this can restart the VM on new underlying host hardware and clear temporary issues. Additionally, check the Boot diagnostics tab in the portal for any startup issues, such as being stuck on the Windows Update screen, which may require several hours to complete.

If the VM is still unresponsive due to disk space issues or broken extensions, consider detaching the OS disk and attaching it to a healthy VM to check for available space and remove unnecessary files or problematic extensions. After making the necessary changes, reattach the disk to the original VM. If all else fails, use the Redeploy feature in the Azure portal to move the VM to a new Azure host while preserving its configurations and data. Reviewing Activity Logs, Metrics, and Serial Console logs can also help identify specific issues contributing to the problem.

Relevant documents for you: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/windows/redeploy-to-new-node-windows
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/windows/troubleshoot-stuck-updating-boot-error

If you have any further queries, do let us know.
Mark Windle 90 Reputation points

2025-06-11T20:04:16.0066667+00:00

Hi, thanks for your assistance. I can confirm that I have stopped and then attempted to start the VM again a couple of times. You can also see that I attempted a re-apply 10 hours ago.

I also have tried to re-deploy, assuming it is done here

The errors from both were the following

"submissionTimestamp": "2025-06-11T09:28:31Z", "subscriptionId": "ec487679-8cea-4206-a50c-ea9218fe2651", "tenantId": "98a61d6d-690e-4fad-8954-8d7915c69662", "properties": { "statusMessage": "{"status":"Failed","error":{"code":"ResourceOperationFailure","message":"The resource operation completed with terminal provisioning state 'Failed'.","details":[{"code":"VMStartTimedOut","message":"VM 'Airbus' did not start in the allotted time. The VM may still start successfully. Please check the power state later."}]}}", "eventCategory": "Administrative", "entity": "/subscriptions/ec487679-8cea-4206-a50c-ea9218fe2651/resourceGroups/concorde/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/Airbus", "message": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/start/action", "hierarchy": "98a61d6d-690e-4fad-8954-8d7915c69662/dev-mg/ec487679-8cea-4206-a50c-ea9218fe2651"

Here is a screenshot of the drive with loaded onto another VM with 100GB spare

Interestingly, this is the last image from the boot log
Mark Windle 90 Reputation points

2025-06-11T20:41:51.15+00:00

Also I ran this command as per the 2nd link "dism /image:E:\ /get-packages > c:\Temp\output.txt" but the updates is appears to be outputting are for the Windows installation for that server as in has installations going abck to 2021 and there VM is only a couple of months old at most
Palmer Wilson 80 Reputation points

2025-06-11T22:01:11.6633333+00:00

@Mark Windle

There have been a few of us on the forums today that have ran into this issue. I would check to see if your VM running version 6 of the size (i.e. Standard_D8as_v6). All our version 6 servers ran into this after rebooting for windows updates last night. It seems, for now at least, changing the size to version 5 will resolve it. That worked for us.

You can see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2282881/azure-vm-stuck-in-updating-status for more of the discussion.
Mark Windle 90 Reputation points

2025-06-11T22:54:37.7+00:00

@Palmer Wilson Thanks for the suggestion. When checking in Azure, all v4 & v5’s are reported as “incompatible disk controller type”. It’s a relatively new VM, at most a couple of months old.
Mark Windle 90 Reputation points

2025-06-12T10:50:21.76+00:00

@Palmer Wilson Thank you very much, those steps worked.
Anusree Nashetty 4,380 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-12T20:03:28.13+00:00

Hi Mark Windle,

As the steps provided by Palmer Wilson worked for you, could you please take a moment to Accept the Answer, so that others in the community can find the solution.

Thank you.

Accepted answer

0 additional answers

Your answer

Anusree Nashetty 4,380 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-11T17:52:22.3366667+00:00

Hi Mark Windle,

If your Azure virtual machine is stuck in the "Updating" or "Starting" state and encounters a VMStartTimedOut error, it typically means the VM was provisioned but failed to start within the expected time frame. This issue can arise from problems with the OS boot process, prolonged Windows Updates, or communication issues with the Azure VM Guest Agent. A common indication of this is the guest agent status message stating, “VM status blob is found but not yet populated.”

To address this, start by reapplying the virtual machine from the Azure portal, which may resolve transient failures. If that doesn't work, try stopping (deallocating) the VM and then starting it again, as this can restart the VM on new underlying host hardware and clear temporary issues. Additionally, check the Boot diagnostics tab in the portal for any startup issues, such as being stuck on the Windows Update screen, which may require several hours to complete.

If the VM is still unresponsive due to disk space issues or broken extensions, consider detaching the OS disk and attaching it to a healthy VM to check for available space and remove unnecessary files or problematic extensions. After making the necessary changes, reattach the disk to the original VM. If all else fails, use the Redeploy feature in the Azure portal to move the VM to a new Azure host while preserving its configurations and data. Reviewing Activity Logs, Metrics, and Serial Console logs can also help identify specific issues contributing to the problem.

Relevant documents for you: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/windows/redeploy-to-new-node-windows
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/windows/troubleshoot-stuck-updating-boot-error

If you have any further queries, do let us know.
Mark Windle 90 Reputation points

2025-06-11T20:04:16.0066667+00:00

Hi, thanks for your assistance. I can confirm that I have stopped and then attempted to start the VM again a couple of times. You can also see that I attempted a re-apply 10 hours ago.

I also have tried to re-deploy, assuming it is done here

The errors from both were the following

"submissionTimestamp": "2025-06-11T09:28:31Z", "subscriptionId": "ec487679-8cea-4206-a50c-ea9218fe2651", "tenantId": "98a61d6d-690e-4fad-8954-8d7915c69662", "properties": { "statusMessage": "{"status":"Failed","error":{"code":"ResourceOperationFailure","message":"The resource operation completed with terminal provisioning state 'Failed'.","details":[{"code":"VMStartTimedOut","message":"VM 'Airbus' did not start in the allotted time. The VM may still start successfully. Please check the power state later."}]}}", "eventCategory": "Administrative", "entity": "/subscriptions/ec487679-8cea-4206-a50c-ea9218fe2651/resourceGroups/concorde/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/Airbus", "message": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/start/action", "hierarchy": "98a61d6d-690e-4fad-8954-8d7915c69662/dev-mg/ec487679-8cea-4206-a50c-ea9218fe2651"

Here is a screenshot of the drive with loaded onto another VM with 100GB spare

Interestingly, this is the last image from the boot log
Mark Windle 90 Reputation points

2025-06-11T20:41:51.15+00:00

Also I ran this command as per the 2nd link "dism /image:E:\ /get-packages > c:\Temp\output.txt" but the updates is appears to be outputting are for the Windows installation for that server as in has installations going abck to 2021 and there VM is only a couple of months old at most
Palmer Wilson 80 Reputation points

2025-06-11T22:01:11.6633333+00:00

@Mark Windle

There have been a few of us on the forums today that have ran into this issue. I would check to see if your VM running version 6 of the size (i.e. Standard_D8as_v6). All our version 6 servers ran into this after rebooting for windows updates last night. It seems, for now at least, changing the size to version 5 will resolve it. That worked for us.

You can see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2282881/azure-vm-stuck-in-updating-status for more of the discussion.
Mark Windle 90 Reputation points

2025-06-11T22:54:37.7+00:00

@Palmer Wilson Thanks for the suggestion. When checking in Azure, all v4 & v5’s are reported as “incompatible disk controller type”. It’s a relatively new VM, at most a couple of months old.
Mark Windle 90 Reputation points

2025-06-12T10:50:21.76+00:00

@Palmer Wilson Thank you very much, those steps worked.
Anusree Nashetty 4,380 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-12T20:03:28.13+00:00

Hi Mark Windle,

As the steps provided by Palmer Wilson worked for you, could you please take a moment to Accept the Answer, so that others in the community can find the solution.

Thank you.

Answer 1

@Mark Windle , yea I ran into that too. I wasn't sure how common it was or if it was caused by how I deployed my machines. To get around it was kind of a pain. I will give a flyby of the steps I took and hopefully it can help:

Take snapshot of the version 6 OS Disk
Create a Disk from the Snapshot
Create a new VM with the Version 5 VM size
Match settings as close to the version 6 vm as possible (Region, zone options, security type, image, architecture ect.. ) but make sure you chose the v5 of the VM size.
Deploy and stop the image once its deployed.
Detach any non-os disks from the version 6 VM
On the Version 5 VM in disks, Swap OS Disk and swap with the created disk from snapshot on step 2.
Attach any other non OS disk matching the LUN number they were configured with on the version 6 VM.

Now at this point I wanted to keep the same NIC that was attached to the version 6 VM. It wouldn't let me detach the NIC without having at least one NIC attached attached to it. So I took these steps:

Created a new nic to attach to the version 6 VM
Detach the existing NIC from the version 6 VM i wanted to keep
Attach existing NIC I wanted to keep to the version 5 VM
Detached the NIC that was created during creation of the version 5 VM

At this point I was able to start the VM and everything worked as expected. I even reapplied the windows patch from last night.

There is likely a better way to handle that issue but this was a result of just trying to think on my feet and get production servers back online.

Hope this helps point you in the right direction.

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The virtual machine is in a failed state

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