Azure Student Subscription Disappeared: 'Experiencing Authentication Issue' and VM Inaccessible

Question

I was using my Azure Student Subscription, which was running smoothly. I had created a free VM under this account, and my $100 Azure credit was still intact.

Suddenly, my VM refused to connect, and when I checked my account, all my resources, including the VM and even the subscription itself, were gone. Whenever I try to access any feature in the Azure portal, I get the error: "Experiencing authentication issue."

Additionally, I am unable to create a support ticket because the same authentication error appears repeatedly. This issue has left me without access to my resources or any way to resolve the problem.

I would appreciate any guidance on:

1. How to recover my Azure Student subscription and resources.
2. Resolving the authentication issue so I can access my account properly.

Thank you for your help!

Answer 1

Hello @tamim,

Thank you for reaching out Microsoft Q&A.

We understand that you are facing issues with Azure Student Subscription and also with the VM you have created. Whenever you try to access any feature in the Azure portal, you get the error: "Experiencing authentication issue." 

When we look into the error "Experiencing authentication issue" while accessing Azure resources it might be caused if you are using your student account to sign in to Microsoft Services tenant as a standard user with restricted access. 

This error usually occurs when you sign in to Azure Portal using your personal account which is not added as an external/guest user to an Azure AD tenant. 

You can ask the global administrator to invite you as a guest user as mentioned here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/external-identities/add-users-administrator#add-guest-users-to-the-directory. 

Once you are added to an azure tenant then you accept the invite sent to you via email, then you can also create your own tenant to have administrative access to perform all actions. 

Regarding the disappearance of the subscription, there might be several reasons. Could you please check the following scenarios to confirm if that is causing the issue. 

1. Check Directory Selection: Often, Azure creates the subscription under a different directory than expected. It might be worth trying Switch directories at the top and seeing if the subscription appears in another directory. 

Look in Cost Management: You can check the Cost Management + Billing session and click on Azure Subscriptions on the left menu. Even if the subscription wasn’t visible in the main portal, it sometimes showed up here with options to manage or link it. 

1. Also, your Azure for Students subscription might get disabled because you used all of your credit. It might also get disabled if your credit is expired or you accidentally canceled your subscription. 

Kindly refer the document for more information: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/manage/azurestudents-subscription-disabled

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.

Thanks & Best Regards

Janaki Kota