Umbraco 6 on Azure: UmbracoModule Service Unavailable

Question

I'm deploying a new Umbraco 6 installation to Azure, and I've run into a problem I can't seem to diagnose.

Here are the steps I took to get the site deployed:

1. Created new MVC 4 project in VS2012
2. Installed UmbracoCms 6.0.0 via NuGet
3. Tested locally: SUCCESS
4. Set up correct connection string for Azure in Web.config (via transform)
5. Deployed to Azure using Web Deploy

Unfortunately, when I navigated to the Azure instance, I get a blank page with "The service is unavailable." I enabled detailed logging in Azure, and looked at the log files. There wasn't much that suggested a solution to me. This is what the detailed error says:

Module : UmbracoModule

Notification : ResolveRequestCache

Handler : PageHandlerFactory-Integrated-4.0

Error Code : 0x00000000

I'm out of ideas at this point...any ideas?

Answer 1

I've just gone through the steps of what you describe. I created a MVC4 project and downloaded Umbraco 6 via Nuget. What I did notice was that I had to 'include' a fair number of file into the project structure in the VS solution explorer.

I ran the website locally and ran an install just using SQL CE.

I created a website on Azure and I downloaded the .PublishSettings file and imported this into the Web Deploy options in VS. I then published the site 'as is' just to see what happened. I didn't expect the database to work but I just wanted to make sure that the application ran ok and I could at least access the Umbraco login screen.

When I accessed the site, it worked as expected and I could access the login screen at /umbraco/

Given the problems you are having, although this sounds simple, did you 'include' all the files in the solution explorer before deploying?

If you are still having issues, I would doing what I have done and just setting up another very simple site to test your deployment process. I have to be honest, I was surprised how easy it is.

Answer 2

I've just been through the same steps with the simple blog and it was quite hard. I didn't include anything into Visual Studio (except it's 2010 and I downloaded the publish profile) and the site ran fine locally.

On uploading Umbraco 6 to azure I got 'Could not load file or assembly MySql.Data, ' etc. .net error. Of course, it was there.

On repeating my deployment steps, swapping between Visual Studio, Web Matrix and Sql Azure Migration Wizard, checking it was release config on build etc. (not that it should need building) I got various 'The page cannot be displayed because an internal server error has occurred' on a blank white screen, and 'Could not load My.Sql' errors.

Coming back to it the next day, I deployed again, and my user had lost its role membership in the database. I ran the EXEC sp_addrolemembers again, and lo, the site now works. I wish I could be more specific on what went wrong and what got fixed, but it's all a bit voodoo.

I second what Digby said - make sure all your includes are, well, included and keep on deploying. I think azure is having a bit of a do lately, there was an outage last week on 23rd Feb.