Azure web role not starting

Question

I have a web role that will not start up when I deploy to Azure. Does anyone have any advice on the following windows event log...

Application: CacheDumpGenerator.exe Framework Version: v4.0.30319 Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception. Exception Info: System.Runtime.InteropServices.SEHException Stack: at <Module>.RdGetLocalResource(UInt16*, _RD_RESOURCE**) at <Module>._LOCALRESOURCE.GetLocalResourceW(UInt16*, _LOCALRESOURCE**) at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime.Internal.InteropRoleManager.GetLocalResource(System.String, Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime.Internal.InteropLocalResource ByRef) at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime.RoleEnvironment.GetLocalResource(System.String) at Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.AzureCommon.AzureUtility.GetLocalStoreDirectory() at Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.AzureCommon.AzureStartupLogger.InitializeTraceProvider() at Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.AzureCommon.AzureStartupLogger.get_TraceProvider() at Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.AzureCommon.AzureStartupLogger.WriteLog(System.String, System.Diagnostics.TraceEventType, System.String) at Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.CacheDumpGenerator.ProcessDump.Main(System.String[])

I've just upgraded the web role to MVC4 from MVC3 which had worked fine. The application runs fine locally. I have just upgraded Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Configuration v2.

Answer 1

If you can establish a remote desktop connection with the machine, then do that and, rather than just looking in the Event Viewer, open up IIS Manager and browse to your website.

For me, this will often show an ASP.NET yellow screen error identifying any required files that have not been included within your deployed Azure package. You should mark those files as "Copy Local=true" and redeploy - you may need to do this a number of times to catch all of the missing files.