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Azure VM stops at "Please wait for the Group Policy Client" screen

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Symptoms

When you start your Azure virtual machine (VM), the VM stops responding, and you receive the following message:

Please wait for the Group Policy Client

The Please wait for the Group Policy Client screen.

Cause

Windows is trying to process and apply Group Policy settings to this VM. If there are many policy settings, or complex policy settings, this process can take time.

We recommend that you wait up to an hour for the VM to complete processing the policy settings. If the VM is still stopped at this screen after one hour, collect a memory dump file for cause analysis by Microsoft Support.

Solution

To resolve this problem, the memory dump file must be analyzed. Collect the memory dump file and send it to Microsoft Support. To collect the memory dump file, follow the instructions in the following sections.

Part 1: Attach the OS disk to a recovery VM

  1. Take a snapshot of the OS disk of the affected VM to create a backup. For more information, see Create a snapshot of a virtual hard disk.

  2. Attach the OS disk to a recovery VM.

  3. Use remote desktop protocol (RDP) to connect remotely to the recovery VM.

  4. If the OS disk of the affected VM is encrypted, turn off encryption before you go to the next step. For more information, see Decrypt the encrypted OS disk.

Part 2: Locate the dump file and submit a support ticket

  1. On the recovery VM, go to the Windows folder on the attached OS disk. For example, if the drive letter that's assigned to the attached OS disk is F, go to F:\Windows.

  2. Locate the Memory.dmp file, and then submit a support ticket and attach the dump file.

Note

If you're having trouble locating the Memory.dmp file, you can try to use non-maskable interrupt (NMI) calls in the serial console instead. You can use this guidance to generate a crash dump file by using NMI calls.

Contact us for help

If you have questions or need help, create a support request, or ask Azure community support. You can also submit product feedback to Azure feedback community.