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Azure billing shut down virtual machiens without warning because of a "Spending limit", cannot log back in

MSDN_userSince1994_reloginDec2024 0 Reputation points
2024-12-13T13:10:08.82+00:00

(Repost because post button hung in a wait loop).

After hours on Dec 10, Azure suddenly shut down the virtual machines in my account and sent a mail saying it had done so, but with no details except a GUID. There was no prior warning like ("your spending limit will be exceeded in 96 hours, change your limit NOW"). The virtual machines consumed only a fixed amount per day, so warning would have been trivial.

When I tried logging back into Azure today (Dec 13), I got "restricted account" (or a similar term) messages and a notification that there were "Authentication issues" with a link to a github document for "extension developers" (no known extension involved, this was the main Azure Portal login). Seems my login has become disassociated from my Microsoft Online resources, or the Entra ID login system has failed .

So how do I regain access to the existing resources to remove the spending limit and restart the virtual machines on their existing IP addresses (they have no value without)?

There is no "corporate admin account" involved, just my own login for these resources. I have one other account with no virtual machines, but I don't expect that to have access to the virtual machines damaged by the runaway "spending limit" robot .

Environment: Access from Windows 10.0.17763.6532 LTSC 2019, Firefox 128.5 ESR

Reproducibility: Near impossible (Login keeps going into a blank account experience with no choice of directory. Complete reproduction would require taking a time machine 5 years back, redoing all activities and payments in sequence then getting the same bad results).

Azure Cost Management
Azure Cost Management
A Microsoft offering that enables tracking of cloud usage and expenditures for Azure and other cloud providers.
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  1. akinbade abiola 21,045 Reputation points
    2024-12-14T06:06:09.8266667+00:00

    Thanks for your question.

    When your usage results in charges that exhaust your spending limit, the services that you deployed are disabled for the rest of that billing period.

    If your subscription type includes credits over multiple months, your subscription is re-enabled automatically at the beginning of the next billing period. Then you can redeploy your Azure resources and have full access to your storage accounts and databases.

    See:

    https://zcusa.951200.xyz/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/spending-limit?source=recommendations

    To regain access to the resources, if you are using a subscription that renews every month you can wait and redeploy. If not, you can navigate to a pay as you go subscription.

    I will also recommend you create a support request since this seems a bit urgent from you description. To do this: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/create-ticket

    You can mark it 'Accept Answer' and 'Upvote' if this helped you

    Regards,

    Abiola

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