"Initializing - Busy - Stopping" LOOP issue in Azure deployement

Question

Hi folks,

I am trying to deploy an azure cloud application on Windows Azure. Application specifications are -->

1. It has one WebRole - ASP.Net MVC Application (ASP.Net charting control is used in this MVC application)
2. It does not contain any worker role.
3. Third party references are set with property "copy Local" to "true"(MVC,ASP Charting control & ASP Provider DLLs)
4. There is no DiagnosticsConnectionString in service configuration file
5. It uses ASP provider for session state management.

This application runs successfully on local dev fabric but when I try to deploy it on Windows Azure it gets stuck in a loop with status being changed between Initializing, Busy, Stopping states. It never goes into READY state. It seems that there are no ERROR logs for conveying the deployment issues to user.

So is there any way to diagnose deployment issues ? Is there any way to get deployment ERROR logs ?

Any kind of help will be appreciated.

Thanks, Kushal

Answer 1

I had a similar issue a few weeks back, so maybe you can use what I learnt:

Bear in mind that only assemblies directly referenced by your web role will be included in the deployment package. This means that if the project MySolution.WebRole1 references a project called MySolution.ServiceLayer which in turn references a third-party assembly ThirdParty.SomeAssembly.dll, then that assembly will not be included in the package. In that case you have to add a reference in MySolution.WebRole1 to ThirdParty.SomeAssemlby.dll.

EDIT: As for diagnostics: If you haven't done so already, you may want to take a look at the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit - December Update. It contains a lab exercise called "Deploying and Monitoring Applications in Windows Azure".

Answer 2

Directly referencing the needed assemblies indeed is something you have to take care of. But if your third party dll's have different versions for x64 platforms, then you also have to make sure that you include the correct version of the assembly as Azure roles run on x64 instances. That was the problem I experienced.

Check this post for more information on how to do that. Also there is some great information here on what can cause a loop in your Azure deployment.