As you may have been aware, Microsoft acquired ADX Studios in September 2016, and since then has been actively transitioning to a subscription based on-demand service hosted within Office 365. Previously with Enterprise ADX Studios you had full control over the environment, including restarts, deployments, and so on. With the Office 365 hosted Microsoft Portals (aka ADX Studio Portals), you must now use the Applications management console within the Dynamics 365 Admin Centre. Sometimes your application may do what you want, but other times when you encounter errors you may need to jump start the portal again. Here’s a few tips on how to revive a fallen Microsoft Portal instance yourself before you open a MS Support Ticket.

Let’s start with the easiest and safest route first.

RESTART

This action restarts your IIS Website on the Azure host.

  • Click on Admin Centers, then Dynamics 365.

  • Navigate to Applications
  • Click on Manage
  • Click on Portal Actions
  • Then Click RESTART
  • Wait a few minutes and see if your site comes back up.

If the above didn’t work, it’s time to move to the next step.

Change Portal State

This step involves setting the portal to an OFF state then back onto an ON state in the hope that will be enough for the service to recognize your portal.

  • Within the Portal settings page, click on PORTAL DETAILS
  • Next locate the setting for Change Portal State, and set this to Off.
  • Wait about 60 seconds for the Portal to shut down completely. Then refresh the Portal Details page and it should show that the state is indeed OFF.
  • Then change the Portal State setting back to ON.
  • Now retest your portal to see if it has come back online.

Change Dynamics 365 Instance

The next step is a little more drastic, but it involves deploying a new sandbox instance of Dynamics 365 and setting the portal to point to that, then setting it back to the original Dynamics 365 instance. This works if you have recently changed Dynamics 365 online URLs. This step overwrites some of the Portal configuration settings within Dynamics 365.

  • Before you begin, create a new Sandbox instance of Dynamics 365. See following article if you’re unsure how to do this : https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn659833.aspx
  • Back on the Portal admin page. Click on Manage Dynamics 365 Instance.
  • Then Click on Update Dynamics 365 Instance
  • Take note of your current settings (you will need them later!)
  • Click on Select a Dynamics 365 Instance and set this to your newly created sandbox and select a Portal Audience and Portal to be Deployed, then click the Checkbox
  • This can take up to an hour, but usually it’s pretty quick. Go make a coffee come back and check if it has successfully provisioned.
  • Once you’ve confirmed the D365 instance has changed, we’re going to set it back. So using the same steps, select a Dynamics 365 Instance and revert all your settings to what it was originally.
  • Once you’ve reverted your settings, test your portal, and with any luck it should come back online.

If all else fails, then you can probably open a MS Support Ticket.

Summary

Hopefully I saved you a few hours of grief with this tip. Please re-share on your social networks, and let me know what you thought about it. Until next time, happy D365’ing!!