Windows 2019 Image creation can't be completed

[dtabolich]

Description

Hi,
I'm trying to build an image for windows-2019 based VM, so I can use it as my own agent in Azure DevOps pipelines.
I've tried few times (~3.5 hr each run) in various Azure regions, but same issue appears.
I'd appreciate if you could suggest some fix/workaround how to bypass it.

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 12
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025

Image version and build link

windows-2019

Is it regression?

No

Expected behavior

Using GenerateResourcesAndImage I'd expect I can create a VM image, so I can use it to provision build agent for Azure Pipelines.

Actual behavior

Scripts gets failed due to the 'ResourceExists' issue as shown below:

Retry doesn't help.

Repro steps

Run the GenerateResourcesAndImage function with the following params:

SubscriptionId - {my subscription};
ResourceGroupName - {my rg};
AzureLocation - I've tried "East US" and "North Europe";
ImageType - "Windows2019"

I execute provisioning from another VM (Linux (ubuntu 24.04)), hosted within the same Subscription where I try to create an image.

In addition, I do have 'Application Developer' role 'Subscription Owner' privileges.

[Prabhatkumar59]

Hi @dtabolich - Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We will look into this issue and will update you after investigating.


[kishorekumar-anchala]

H @dtabolich - Thank you for sharing your issue. After reviewing, it seems the problem is not related to our images, so we are moving this to Discussions.

Could you please modify your script to delete the existing group and recreate it? You can refer to the script below:

https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/main/helpers/GenerateResourcesAndImage.ps1#L262

[dtabolich]

Alright. I’ll give it a try and update this thread.

[dtabolich]

@kishorekumar-anchala, I'm not sure, I've got your point regarding script modification.
Since I'm cloning the repo, I do have L262 in my script already. So, when I invoke GenerateResourcesAndImages from 'pwsh', I pass a resource group name for the group, which doesn't exist. I'm not sure, what else do I need here...
So, I'd appreciate any advice on that.
BTW, it's interesting, but overall process goes quite smoothly for about 3.5 hrs installing all the needed packages remotely.
However, it gets stuck on the step which I provided on screenshot. Which is kind of strange behaviour...

[dtabolich]

Some examples of 'green' process til it fails..

[dtabolich]

and after almost 3 hrs it just fails... As you can see, the origin of the issue is 'thumbprint mismatch', so on my initial screen there an error shows up when you press 'retry' option after this failure. So, the root cause is in thumbprint, and I found few similar issues from folks on that. Is there any solid fix or ?

[dtabolich]

Is there any way to get Windows2019 VM with all the toolset instantiated on Azure?