InternalServerError - An unexpected error occurred | Error displayed when loading projects or trying to auto-label documents in Document Intelligence Studio

Question

Problem started 48 hours ago. Getting "InternalServerError" when loading projects and trying to auto-label documents. Able to get into project but when trying to auto-label a document we get another "InternalServerError - An unexpected error occurred."

Cleared all browser cache and cookies and signed out and back in. Tried with Chrome and Edge.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Hello Simon Ewans,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A and Thank you for reaching out.

It does look like you’re hitting a Document Intelligence Studio backend issue, especially given that this started suddenly ~48 hours ago and persists across browsers and after clearing cache.

What we can conclude so far

• You can open the project, but actions like loading projects fully or auto-labeling documents fail.

The error is a generic InternalServerError – An unexpected error occurred, which typically indicates a service-side failure, not a client or configuration issue.

Since you’ve already tried Chrome, Edge, cache clearing, and re-sign-in, we can reasonably rule out browser-side causes.

Things to check

1.Azure Service Health

Check Azure Service Health for your region, specifically for:

Azure AI Document Intelligence

Even if no incident is posted yet, issues like this are often regional and may not be immediately visible on the public status page.

2.Permissions

Ensure your user or managed identity has the required roles on the Document Intelligence resource, such as:

Cognitive Services User

Cognitive Services Contributor

You can verify this in Azure Portal → Access control (IAM). That said, permission issues usually surface as authorization errors, not InternalServerError, so this is just a quick check.

3.Document size / complexity

As a temporary workaround, try:

Auto-labeling a very small or simple document

Splitting large or complex PDFs into smaller files

If small documents also fail, that further confirms a backend issue rather than a document-specific limitation.

4.Try another region

If you can:

Create a new Document Intelligence resource in another supported region

Upload a test project and attempt auto-labeling there

If it works in a different region, this strongly confirms a regional service degradation.

5.Network / firewall considerations

If your setup uses:

VNets

Private endpoints

Strict firewall rules

Double-check that nothing has recently changed. However, network blocks usually result in connection or authorization errors, not intermittent InternalServerError, so this is less likely the root cause.

What’s most likely happening

Based on the timing and symptoms, this points to a temporary backend or regional issue in Document Intelligence Studio, particularly affecting the auto-labeling pipeline. These issues can occur during backend updates, scaling events, or transient service failures.

Please refer this

• Document Intelligence Studio Overview
• Troubleshooting Azure Document Intelligence
• Azure Service Status

I Hope this helps. Do let me know if you have any further queries.

Thank you!