Can't create Azure AI Search resouce

Hi @EPS Software Corp

Hey there,

Sorry you're running into this, I get the frustration. I'm a startup founder myself, and there's nothing worse than being ready to hand Microsoft your money and getting stonewalled by a generic error message with no obvious way forward. Let's get you unblocked my friend.

On the error itself

An "An internal error has occurred... (Code: Unknown)" on Azure AI Search creation almost always comes down to one of a few things, and in my experience it's rarely something you did wrong:

1. The Microsoft.Search resource provider isn't registered yet on your subscription. This is common on newer or recently-upgraded subscriptions, and it produces exactly this kind of vague failure. You can check it yourself: Azure portal → Subscriptions → your subscription → Resource providers, search for Microsoft.Search, and register it if it shows as "NotRegistered." Give it 5–15 minutes to propagate, then try again.
2. An Azure Policy assignment is silently blocking creation. Some tenants have policies (e.g., requiring managed identity) that reject the request before the resource even exists, and the error surfaced isn't always specific about why.
3. A transient backend issue on Microsoft's side. I've seen a few similar reports where a generic, Unknown-coded error on Cognitive Services/Search-family resources turned out to be a backend problem that only Microsoft's engineering team could see and fix — nothing wrong with the request itself.

Since you got the identical error in two separate regions (South Central US and Central US), that points more toward #1 or #3 than anything region-specific.

What I'd try next

• Check the resource provider registration as above.
• If the portal keeps failing, try creating the service through the Azure CLI or PowerShell instead — sometimes that succeeds even when the portal wizard chokes.
• Pull up Activity Log in the portal and look up the failed operation using your RequestId (aca3efb7-8094-452f-ae94-cc33e8fd23cf). It sometimes surfaces a more specific inner error than what the portal displays.

On the support-contract frustration

Totally hear you here, and I want to clear something up: you do not need a paid support plan to ask about billing, purchasing, or subscription problems. Billing and subscription support requests through the Azure portal are free for every Azure customer, paid plan or not.

https://azure.microsoft.com/support/create-ticket

Select "Billing" as the issue type, include the RequestId and the timestamp, and mention both regions you tried as that gives their team enough to dig into the backend logs directly. If it turns out to be a pure technical/service defect, they'll route it to the right team from there.

Hope this gets you moving, and for what it's worth, this kind of opaque provisioning error is a known rough edge, not a reflection of how Azure AI Search itself performs once it's up and running. Good luck getting your Search service stood up!

Please 'Upvote' (^) and 'Accept' this answer if it helped in any way — it makes it easier for other hitting the same wall.

Best, Andrew S Taylor