my azure virtual machine unexpectedely deallocated on its own while working on it

Question

My virtual machine (VM) is getting deallocated unexpectedly while I'm actively using it for analysis. This unexpected shutdown is causing disruptions to my work, and I need to restart the analysis each time.

Answer 1

Hello, @zainab rehman ! We haven't heard back from you which hopefully means that your issue has been resolved. If not, I've included some troubleshooting steps below and would be happy to help work through the issue if the initial troubleshooting steps don't resolve your issue.

What should I do if my VM shuts down unexpectedly?

There are a variety of possible causes but Azure or service related causes are the quickest to rule out:

• Auto-shutdown: The auto-shutdown feature for Azure VMs can help reduce costs by shutting down the VMs during off hours when they aren't needed and automatically restarting them when they're needed again. Make sure this hasn't been enabled if you are running into unexpected shutdowns.
• Spot Instance VM: Azure Spot Virtual Machines allows you to take advantage of unused Azure capacity at a significant cost savings however these VMs will be evicted with 30 second notice if Azure needs the capacity back. For uninterrupted VM use, create your VM with a standard deployment.
• Azure maintenance: Azure periodically performs necessary updates and replaces hardware. Most of these updates won't impact the VM however there are some exceptions that require a reboot, usually with a self-service window to avoid interruption to key services.

After that, the next step is to look at Resource Health information, activity logs, and VM information to determine if your VM health is responsible for the shutdowns:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/understand-vm-reboot

How to check the Root Cause Analysis of an unexpected VM reboot:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/unexpected-vm-reboot-root-cause-analysis

When looking at this information, make sure that your VM is not struggling with the workload that you have given it. Redeploying or resizing the VM may be necessary in this case.

If you've gone through these steps and still need assistance, please let us know in the comments so we can continue to troubleshoot this.

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