By default, if an exception occurs in an Azure Function that uses a Storage Queue trigger, the message will be returned to the queue and automatically retried again in the future (up to a maximum number of times).
By default, there is no delay in how soon the message can be retried.
public static class MakeUppercase
{
[FunctionName("MakeUppercase")]
public static void Run(
[QueueTrigger("input-queue")]CloudQueueMessage inputQueueItem,
ILogger log)
{
log.LogInformation($"Message Dequeued : {inputQueueItem.DequeueCount} time(s)");
log.LogInformation($"Message Next Visible : {inputQueueItem.NextVisibleTime}");
throw new Exception("Forced exception for demonstration purposes.");
}
}
With the preceding function, when a single message is added to the queue, the following (abbreviated) output will be seen:
[15/01/2019 11:55:49 PM] Executing 'MakeUppercase' (Reason='New queue message detected on 'input-queue'.', Id=44f95504-7a99-4f23-81f2-096f0bd434a2)
[15/01/2019 11:55:49 PM] Message Dequeued : 1 time(s)
[15/01/2019 11:55:49 PM] Message Next Visible : 16/01/2019 12:05:49 AM +00:00
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Executed 'MakeUppercase' (Failed, Id=44f95504-7a99-4f23-81f2-096f0bd434a2)
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Executing 'MakeUppercase' (Reason='New queue message detected on 'input-queue'.', Id=bbede56f-e22a-461f-945c-3f3b47114de3)
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Message Dequeued : 2 time(s)
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Message Next Visible : 16/01/2019 12:05:50 AM +00:00
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Executed 'MakeUppercase' (Failed, Id=bbede56f-e22a-461f-945c-3f3b47114de3)
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Executing 'MakeUppercase' (Reason='New queue message detected on 'input-queue'.', Id=10b7495f-9cfb-4d75-bc31-db68581b8055)
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Message Dequeued : 3 time(s)
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Message Next Visible : 16/01/2019 12:05:50 AM +00:00
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Executed 'MakeUppercase' (Failed, Id=10b7495f-9cfb-4d75-bc31-db68581b8055)
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Executing 'MakeUppercase' (Reason='New queue message detected on 'input-queue'.', Id=385beb36-80b7-47a5-ba65-b0d04f956cc6)
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Message Dequeued : 4 time(s)
[15/01/2019 11:55:50 PM] Message Next Visible : 16/01/2019 12:05:50 AM +00:00
[15/01/2019 11:55:51 PM] Executed 'MakeUppercase' (Failed, Id=385beb36-80b7-47a5-ba65-b0d04f956cc6)
[15/01/2019 11:55:51 PM] Executing 'MakeUppercase' (Reason='New queue message detected on 'input-queue'.', Id=f6acfb11-41fb-416e-88b1-e113aa4424f5)
[15/01/2019 11:55:51 PM] Message Dequeued : 5 time(s)
[15/01/2019 11:55:51 PM] Message Next Visible : 16/01/2019 12:05:51 AM +00:00
[15/01/2019 11:55:51 PM] Executed 'MakeUppercase' (Failed, Id=f6acfb11-41fb-416e-88b1-e113aa4424f5)
[15/01/2019 11:55:51 PM] Message has reached MaxDequeueCount of 5. Moving message to queue 'input-queue-poison'.
Notice in the preceding output, the next visible times don’t include a delay in when the message can potentially be retried.
The next visible time controls when the message will become visible to be consumed. This default value in Azure Functions is 0. You may want to change this default if you want to add some delay between message retries (for example to help prevent message loss* for transient failures).
* Eventually, failed messages will be moved to a poison message queue.
The next visible time can be configured in the host.json file (we are using Azure Functions V2 in this article):
{
"version": "2.0",
"extensions": {
"queues": {
"visibilityTimeout": "00:00:30"
}
}
}
The visibilityTimeout value represents a timespan (HH:MM:SS) to wait before a message becomes visible next time, in the preceding configuration, 30 seconds. Running again with this new configuration, the following output can be seen:
[16/01/2019 12:13:01 AM] Executing 'MakeUppercase' (Reason='New queue message detected on 'input-queue'.', Id=1f4f7177-4de6-4f4c-98c1-48d318892112)
[16/01/2019 12:13:01 AM] Message Dequeued : 1 time(s)
[16/01/2019 12:13:01 AM] Message Next Visible : 16/01/2019 12:23:00 AM +00:00
[16/01/2019 12:13:01 AM] Executed 'MakeUppercase' (Failed, Id=1f4f7177-4de6-4f4c-98c1-48d318892112)
[16/01/2019 12:13:32 AM] Executing 'MakeUppercase' (Reason='New queue message detected on 'input-queue'.', Id=93e9a90c-dd83-410f-9435-003712f64513)
[16/01/2019 12:13:32 AM] Message Dequeued : 2 time(s)
[16/01/2019 12:13:32 AM] Message Next Visible : 16/01/2019 12:23:32 AM +00:00
[16/01/2019 12:13:33 AM] Executed 'MakeUppercase' (Failed, Id=93e9a90c-dd83-410f-9435-003712f64513)
[16/01/2019 12:14:04 AM] Executing 'MakeUppercase' (Reason='New queue message detected on 'input-queue'.', Id=7ffe157b-7186-4f84-b8eb-02c43a260352)
[16/01/2019 12:14:04 AM] Message Dequeued : 3 time(s)
[16/01/2019 12:14:04 AM] Message Next Visible : 16/01/2019 12:24:04 AM +00:00
[16/01/2019 12:14:04 AM] Executed 'MakeUppercase' (Failed, Id=7ffe157b-7186-4f84-b8eb-02c43a260352)
[16/01/2019 12:14:36 AM] Executing 'MakeUppercase' (Reason='New queue message detected on 'input-queue'.', Id=ba3c186b-8b33-4b4c-b896-724a95fa2b25)
[16/01/2019 12:14:36 AM] Message Dequeued : 4 time(s)
[16/01/2019 12:14:36 AM] Message Next Visible : 16/01/2019 12:24:36 AM +00:00
[16/01/2019 12:14:36 AM] Executed 'MakeUppercase' (Failed, Id=ba3c186b-8b33-4b4c-b896-724a95fa2b25)
[16/01/2019 12:15:07 AM] Executing 'MakeUppercase' (Reason='New queue message detected on 'input-queue'.', Id=3de85cf0-89ad-430f-8219-ebd7b1701d4d)
[16/01/2019 12:15:07 AM] Message Dequeued : 5 time(s)
[16/01/2019 12:15:07 AM] Message Next Visible : 16/01/2019 12:25:07 AM +00:00
[16/01/2019 12:15:07 AM] Executed 'MakeUppercase' (Failed, Id=3de85cf0-89ad-430f-8219-ebd7b1701d4d)
[16/01/2019 12:15:07 AM] Message has reached MaxDequeueCount of 5. Moving message to queue 'input-queue-poison'.
Notice now that the message won’t be retried for 30 seconds between each attempt (look at the “Message Next Visible” lines).
Setting a visibility other than zero will not prevent other messages that come into the queue from being processed while waiting for retried messages to become visible again.
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