Azure OpenAI 2024‑05‑01-preview Deprecation for AzureCognitiveSearch - 2024‑12‑01-preview returns 400 BadRequest when role_information is present

[Ruben-Wien]

Azure OpenAI 2024‑12‑01-preview returns 400 BadRequest when role_information is present

Describe the bug
Invoking the Azure OpenAI Chat‑Completions API with version 2024‑12‑01-preview and an Azure AI Search data source fails whenever the request body contains the role_information field (still shown in Microsoft’s documentation ). The service responds with 400 BadRequest and states that the field is not permitted:

openai.BadRequestError: Error code: 400 - {
  "error": {
    "requestid": <REDACTED>",
    "code": 400,
    "message": "Validation error at #/data_sources/0/azure_search/parameters/role_information: Extra inputs are not permitted"
  }
}

The Azure portal also shows a retirement notice for the previously used API version 2024‑05‑01-preview:

This deployment uses the legacy model gpt‑4o, version 2024‑05‑13, which will be retired on 2025‑06‑30 (local time). After retirement, inference will return erroneous responses and new deployments will be blocked.

---

To Reproduce

1. Deploy gpt‑4o 2024-08-06 (Standard) and set api_version="2024-12-01-preview".
2. Call the API with the Python SDK v1.3.x:

curl --cacert ./<CERTIFICATE>.crt -v -X POST \
  "https://<RESSOURCE>.openai.azure.com/openai/deployments/<DEPLOYMENT>/chat/completions?api-version=2024-12-01-preview" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "api-key: <API KEY>" \
  -d @- <<'JSON'
{
  "messages": [
    { "role": "user", "content": "BlaBlaBla" }
  ],
  "data_sources": [
    {
      "type": "azure_search",
      "parameters": {
        "endpoint": "https://<AI_SEARCH_SERVICE>.search.windows.net",
        "index_name": "<INDEX_NAME>",
        "authentication": { "type": "api_key", "key": "<AI_SEARCH_KEY>" },
        "top_n_documents": 3,
        "query_type": "simple",
        "role_information": "You are an assistant that answers questions."  # per docs but invalid

      }
    }
  ]
}
JSON

3. Observe the 400 error shown above.

---

Expected behavior
The POST request should always pass the system message as the first element of the messages array, regardless of whether a data source is configured. This replaces the deprecated role_information parameter.

Required code changes:

app.py → prepare_model_args

# old
if not app_settings.datasource:
    messages = [
        {
            "role": "system",
            "content": app_settings.azure_openai.system_message
        }
    ]

# new
messages = [
    {
        "role": "system",
        "content": app_settings.azure_openai.system_message
    }
]

settings.py

• Remove the role_information field from the _SearchCommonSettings class.
• Set MINIMUM_SUPPORTED_AZURE_OPENAI_PREVIEW_API_VERSION = "2024-12-01-preview".

After these changes, requests to API version 2024‑12‑01-preview succeed without 400 errors.

---

Configuration

• Model: gpt-4o
• API version: 2024‑12‑01-preview
• Chat history enabled? No
• Data source: Azure AI Search (OpenAI‑augmented index)

---

Logs

openai.BadRequestError ... role_information: Extra inputs are not permitted

---

Additional context

• Microsoft Docs (retrieved 2025‑05‑13): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/openai/references/azure-search?tabs=python#parameters
• A fix is required before the legacy model is retired on 2025‑06‑30 to avoid production outages.

[rholland-cert]

Upon investigating this I cannot find any official notice that the Azure OpenAI 2024‑05‑01-preview version of the API is being retired. It seems to be that the specific model of gpt-4o 2024‑05‑13 is what is being retired?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/openai/concepts/model-retirements

Newer versions of the gpt-4o model, such as 2024-11-20, should still function with the Azure OpenAI 2024‑05‑01-preview API. We have this exact configuration of model and API version deployed in our environments (e.g. gpt-4o model v2024-11-20 deployed to Azure OpenAI and being utilised by the latest version of the sample-app-aoai-chatGPT application which currently utilises API 2024‑05‑01-preview).

Therefore an update of the soon to be retired gpt-4o 2024‑05‑13 model should be all that is required?