Azure Cloud Service (web role) publishing from Visual Studio 2012 failed with Null Reference exception

Question

Azure Cloud Service (web role) publishing from Visual Studio 2012 failed with Null Reference exception. I got the following log at Output window:

12:44:26 PM - Preparing deployment for xxx - 4/4/2013 12:43:22 PM with Subscription ID 'xxx' using Service Management URL ' https://management.core.windows.net/ '... 12:44:26 PM - Connecting... 12:44:27 PM - Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 12:44:27 PM - Deployment failed with a fatal error

facts: 1. SSL certificate is used 2. local iis installed and started 3. no tag is defined in web.config 4. manual deployment at manage.windowsazure.com works just fine

Please advise, Alex

Answer 1

Make sure you upload the SSL certificate into the Azure Admin Portal before you do the deploy. I had this exact problem last week, and that was the issue.