Visual Studio crashes when publishing to Azure

Question

I have issues when trying to publish my WebApi to Azure. It crashes and restarts my Visual Studio. I have repaired Visual Studio 2015, reapired Azure Tools, updated to Azure Tools 2.9 and Visual Studio Update 2, but it keeps crashing. Here are the logs I get:

<entry>
    <record>745</record>
    <time>2016/04/05 12:27:47.430</time>
    <type>Information</type>
    <source>VisualStudio</source>
    <description>Begin package load [CommonAzureToolsPackage]</description>
    <guid>{1E863AE9-93F6-42FD-A301-D3391F876208}</guid>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <record>746</record>
    <time>2016/04/05 12:27:47.529</time>
    <type>Information</type>
    <source>VisualStudio</source>
    <description>Entering function CVsPackageInfo::HrInstantiatePackage</description>
    <guid>{9C987E78-F0BF-45CA-9BA5-96D3E4B2BAC6}</guid>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <record>747</record>
    <time>2016/04/05 12:27:47.529</time>
    <type>Warning</type>
    <source>VisualStudio</source>
    <description>Appid denied the loading of package</description>
    <guid>{9C987E78-F0BF-45CA-9BA5-96D3E4B2BAC6}</guid>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <record>748</record>
    <time>2016/04/05 12:27:47.529</time>
    <type>Warning</type>
    <source>VisualStudio</source>
    <description>Package failed to load; error message suppressed by skip flag</description>
    <guid>{9C987E78-F0BF-45CA-9BA5-96D3E4B2BAC6}</guid>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <record>749</record>
    <time>2016/04/05 12:27:48.125</time>
    <type>Error</type>
    <source>VisualStudio</source>
    <description>SetSite failed for package [CommonAzureToolsPackage][Object reference not set to an instance of an object.]:{   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.Authentication.KeychainUtil.&lt;&lt;SetAccountManager&gt;b__0&gt;d__1.MoveNext()&#x000D;&#x000A;--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.Authentication.KeychainUtil.&lt;GetVSAccountProviderAsync&gt;d__4.MoveNext()&#x000D;&#x000A;--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.KeychainEndpointProvider.&lt;GetInstanceAsync&gt;d__0.MoveNext()&#x000D;&#x000A;--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.EndpointProviderFactory.&lt;CreateEndpointProviderList&gt;d__3.MoveNext()&#x000D;&#x000A;--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.EndpointProviderFactory.&lt;GetEndpointProviderAsync&gt;d__0.MoveNext()&#x000D;&#x000A;--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.EndpointProviderFactory.GetEndpointProvider()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.CommonAzureToolsPackage.&lt;.ctor&gt;b__1()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Lazy`1.CreateValue()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Lazy`1.LazyInitValue()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Lazy`1.get_Value()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.CommonAzureToolsPackage.&lt;.ctor&gt;b__2()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Lazy`1.CreateValue()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Lazy`1.LazyInitValue()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at System.Lazy`1.get_Value()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.CommonAzureToolsPackage.&lt;RegisterServices&gt;b__61(IServiceContainer c, Type t)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package.GetService(Type serviceType)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package.System.IServiceProvider.GetService(Type serviceType)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.IServiceProviderExtensions.GetService[InterfaceType,ServiceType](IServiceProvider serviceProvider)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.ServerExplorer.AzureNodeStateManager.Initialize(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.CommonAzureToolsPackage.InitializeAzureNodeStateManager()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.WindowsAzure.CommonAzureTools.CommonAzureToolsPackage.Initialize()&#x000D;&#x000A;   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package.Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Interop.IVsPackage.SetSite(IServiceProvider sp)}</description>
    <guid>{1E863AE9-93F6-42FD-A301-D3391F876208}</guid>
    <hr>80004003 - E_POINTER</hr>
    <errorinfo>Object reference not set to an instance of an object.</errorinfo>
  </entry>
  <entry>
    <record>750</record>
    <time>2016/04/05 12:27:50.737</time>
    <type>Error</type>
    <source>VisualStudio</source>
    <description>End package load [CommonAzureToolsPackage]</description>
    <guid>{1E863AE9-93F6-42FD-A301-D3391F876208}</guid>
    <hr>80004003 - E_POINTER</hr>
    <errorinfo>Object reference not set to an instance of an object.</errorinfo>
  </entry>
</activity>

Answer 1

I've experienced way to many VS crashes related to Azure publishing. I'd say I had VS crash more times over a year working with Azure than I have since VS's inception. I will say they have mostly went away over the past 6 months or so with VS2015.

I can say that the biggest preventer of the crash experiences I had was making sure I was authenticated with Azure prior to using any of the things that interact with Azure. Another issue we had was using MS account with the same name as our domain accounts, we had created them long before AAD was here.