Troubleshooting

We spent hours debugging connectivity when the real issue was authentication. Here is why identity failures masquerade as network failures. The Error Message Lies Your app cannot connect to Azure SQL. The error says: “Connection timeout.” You check: firewall rules network security groups VNET configuration DNS resolution Everything looks correct. The issue is not networking. It is identity. The Managed Identity does not have permissions on the database. But the error said “timeout,” not “access denied.” ...

The role assignment is correct. The scope is right. Access is still denied. Here are the hidden reasons why. Propagation Delay Is Real You add a role assignment. You test immediately. It fails. Azure RBAC changes are not instant. Propagation can take up to 30 minutes, though it is usually faster. We spent hours debugging issues that fixed themselves while we investigated. Now we wait five minutes before testing any new role assignment. ...