VS 2026 Co-Pilot Chat is supposed to connect to Azure using Azure MCP Server but isnt

[gingermiteUK]

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Bug

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Visual Studio

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I want to use the new feature to troubleshoot in Azure portal but when I try in VS 2026 co-pilot chat (despite having Azure CLI installed and logged in, and Azure MCP Server checked in the spanner settings), when I ask it to connect it tries using Azure MCP Server but it always fails and when I ask it why it says there is something wrong with it.

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[gingermiteUK]

It keeps saying "Activation of the server 'Azure MCP Server' failed"

[Akash1134]

Hey! Sorry that you’re seeing that “Activation of the server 'Azure MCP Server' failed” message. Here’s how we can fix it.

Quick checks:

• Verify Azure CLI is properly authenticated - Open a terminal in VS and run: az account show
  • This will show your Azure account details. Otherwise, use az login to sign in.
• Check the MCP Server logs - In Visual Studio 2026, look for any error details:
  • Open the Output panel (View > Output)
  • Look at the drop-down menu - find logs tied to MCP or Azure
  • Let me know which error shows up
• Restart Visual Studio as sometimes the extension doesn't pick up authentication changes. Close VS completely and reopen it.
• Check if the Azure MCP Server is properly installed - Confirm the Azure add-on or MCP Server’s completely set up and turned on inside your Visual Studio tools.

If things aren't working yet:

• Check the VS 2026 release notes for known issues with Azure MCP
• Reach out to Visual Studio Support with the exact error from the Output panel
• Post those logs here as well - maybe someone else ran into this problem.

[gingermiteUK]

Check if the Azure MCP Server is properly installed - how do I do that? Thanks

[gingermiteUK]

Claude said "Steps to Enable Azure MCP Server in VS 2026:

1. Install the Azure and AI Development Workload:

Open Visual Studio Installer and select Modify Microsoft Learn
On the Workloads tab, select "Azure and AI development" Microsoft Learn
Verify that GitHub Copilot is selected in the Installation details panel Microsoft Learn
Complete the installation

2. Enable Azure MCP Server Tools:

Launch Visual Studio 2026
Open GitHub Copilot Chat
Click the "Select tools" button (two wrenches icon) Microsoft
Enable all Azure tools by checking the top nodes for Azure and Azure MCP Server Microsoft

3. Authenticate to Azure:
   Azure MCP Server uses Azure CLI, Azure Developer CLI, Visual Studio, or VS Code credentials for authentication Microsoft Learn, so make sure you're signed in to Azure through one of these tools."

I have done all these already!! Still MCP Server wont work

[gingermiteUK]

Co-Pilot says "The Azure MCP Server tools are returning empty results."