Role instance name is not valid while restarting the VM

Question

I an have 8 node cluster setup in the Azure virtual network.

It was working fine until I shut down the virtual machines from the Azure Management Portal (shutdown icon/button).

After I stopped two virtual machines last week, I could not re-start them.

Friday evening I shutdown one more virtual machine to save on the costs, but today I am unable to start this virtual machine as well.

I see the following error:

Failed to start virtual machine VM_NAME_HERE.

Role instance name is not valid

Could anyone please suggest how to fix it?

I have also tried from Powershell with the same result.

Here is the console output:

VERBOSE: 1:33:16 PM - Completed Operation: Get Deployment
VERBOSE: 1:33:16 PM - Begin Operation: Start-AzureVM
Start-AzureVM : ResourceNotFound : Role instance name is not valid.
At line:1 char:1
+ Start-AzureVM -ServiceName MyServiceName -Name VMName
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : CloseError: (:) [Start-AzureVM], ComputeCloudException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Commands.ServiceManagement.IaaS.StartAzureVMCommand

VERBOSE: 1:33:49 PM - Completed Operation: Start-AzureVM

Any help on this is highly appreciated.

Regards, JE

Answer 1

I had the same issue when resizing a VM. My problem was resolved by going into Azure Portal->Virtual Machines->Disks then selecting the disk attached to the VM in question(mine has only one disk) and finally selecting 'edit cache' at the bottom. I just accepted what was already present in the popup and that was it. The VM updated and restarted on its own.