Azure: Missing resources and virtual machines

Infrastructure As A Service (IAAS) is a boon for small businesses and developers alike. The ability to quickly spin up new environments at a relatively low ongoing charge reduces the need to tie up capital in equipment and  facilities.

Furthermore, the small business owner also enjoys all the benefits of enterprise level support like redundancies, backups and ongoing system updates without the need for additional staff of external contractors.

I encountered an interesting issue this morning when logging into my Azure environment. All my resources and virtual machines had apparently disappeared.

I could see them on the dashboard but could not do anything with them. Listing all resources and VMs showed no resources or VMs available.

I finally managed to start a VM from the dashboard in the last activity panel but could not find or use any of my other resources even though I was logged into the right account, my subscription was active and there were no issues or scheduled maintenance logged by Microsoft.

I stumbled onto the solution by going through the normal technology troubleshooting steps.

Likely Cause

• Possible browser cache corruption/browser compatibility.

Solution

1. Log into your account using Edge, or another browser if you are already using Edge.
2. The environment should come as normal.
3. Close all instances of your normal browser.
4. Open and log in again.
5. This resolved it for me, if not my next step was to clear browser cache and try again.