Azure AI Foundry Activity Protocol: responses generated but never delivered to Bot Service Web Chat

Question

Minimal agent (no tools) generates correct response visible in Traces but Web Chat shows nothing. start_time equals end_time in traces. Tested on two different Foundry Resources, multiple Bot Services. Playground works. Bot Service logs show "Unauthorized" errors. Same setup on another tenant works correctly. Identified that working resource on another tenant is in swedencentral while broken resources are in germanywestcentral. Activity Protocol may have a region-specific bug in Germany West Central.

Answer 1

Hi Jannik,

Thanks for sharing the detailed observations.

From what you’ve described, when the Activity Protocol endpoint shows that responses are being generated, for example in traces or monitoring, but nothing appears in the connected channel, this usually means the issue is with message delivery rather than with the agent logic itself.

Here are a few important things to keep in mind:

If everything works in the Playground, that confirms the model and agent configuration are set up correctly.

Message delivery to channels such as Web Chat, Microsoft Teams, or Direct Line depends on the Activity Protocol relay between the Azure AI Foundry agent and Azure AI Bot Service.

We have seen situations where the same setup behaves differently across regions or subscriptions. This can happen due to rollout status, subscription-level enablement, or other service-side constraints. In these cases, responses may be generated successfully but dropped before they reach the channel.

To move forward, we recommend the following checks:

First, verify that the Bot Service and the Foundry resource identities have the required permissions to access each other.

Second, review the Bot Service channel logs carefully for any authorization or relay-related warnings, even if the channel status shows as Healthy.

Third, if the issue consistently occurs in a specific region or subscription but works in another, that strongly suggests a platform-side issue rather than a configuration problem.

I hope this helps, If the behavior continues after these checks, please let me know or if there are any remaining questions or additional details, I can help with, I’ll be glad to provide further clarification or guidance.

Thankyou!

Answer 2

It sounds like you are experiencing an issue with messages generated by your Azure AI Foundry agent not being delivered to the Bot Service Web Chat, despite being visible in the traces. The "Unauthorized" errors in the Bot Service logs suggest that there may be an authentication issue preventing the messages from being sent correctly.

Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot this issue:

1. Check Authentication Settings: Ensure that the authentication settings for your agent application are correctly configured. If you are using the Responses protocol, make sure that the caller has the necessary permissions to invoke the agent application. You may need to verify that the Azure AI User role is assigned correctly.
2. Review Channel Configuration: Since the setup works correctly in another tenant, double-check the channel configuration for the tenant where you are experiencing issues. Ensure that the bot's username and password are correctly set and that there are no discrepancies in the configuration.
3. Test with Different Channels: If possible, test the bot in different channels to see if the issue is isolated to Web Chat. This can help determine if the problem is with the Web Chat channel specifically or with the bot's overall configuration.
4. Inspect Traces for Errors: Since you mentioned that the start_time equals end_time in traces, this could indicate that the response is being generated but not sent. Look for any additional error messages or warnings in the traces that might provide more context about the failure.
5. Consult Documentation: Refer to the Azure documentation on troubleshooting bot configuration issues, as it may provide additional insights or steps specific to your setup.

By following these steps, you should be able to identify the root cause of the issue and resolve the delivery problem for your bot's responses.

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References:

• Troubleshoot bot configuration issues