AZ-204 Practice Question: Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions
You have enabled Application Insights on your Azure Web App. You notice that some server-side exceptions are not appearing in the Application Insights portal. What is the most likely reason?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently assume enabling Application Insights on the Azure portal automatically captures all exceptions, but in reality, caught exceptions require explicit logging via the SDK.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The exceptions are being caught and handled in code without being re-thrown or explicitly logged
Application Insights only captures exceptions that are unhandled or explicitly logged via the SDK. If an exception is caught in a try-catch block and not re-thrown or logged using `TelemetryClient.TrackException()`, it will not appear in the portal. This is a common oversight when developers handle exceptions silently without instrumentation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The Application Insights SDK is not installed in the application
Why it's wrong here
If the Application Insights SDK were not installed in the application, no telemetry of any kind, including requests, dependencies, traces, and metrics, would be sent to Application Insights. The SDK is fundamental for instrumenting the application to collect and transmit data. Therefore, if some telemetry is being sent but exceptions are missing, the SDK's absence is not the root cause.
- ✗
The developer forgot to set the Instrumentation Key in the application configuration
Why it's wrong here
A missing or incorrectly configured Instrumentation Key would prevent the Application Insights SDK from knowing where to send any collected telemetry data. Consequently, if the Instrumentation Key were not set, Application Insights would receive absolutely no telemetry from the application, not just a specific type like exceptions. This would manifest as a complete lack of data in the Application Insights resource.
- ✗
The web app is running on a Free tier App Service plan
Why it's wrong here
The App Service plan tier (e.g., Free, Basic, Standard, Premium) primarily dictates the underlying compute resources, scaling capabilities, custom domain support, and other infrastructure-level features for the web app. It does not inherently restrict or enable the functionality of Application Insights' SDK to capture and transmit standard telemetry, including exceptions. Application Insights operates independently of the App Service plan's tier for core telemetry collection.
- ✓
The exceptions are being caught and handled in code without being re-thrown or explicitly logged
Why this is correct
Application Insights' automatic exception tracking primarily captures unhandled exceptions that propagate up the call stack and cause the application to crash or terminate a request. When exceptions are caught within `try-catch` blocks and handled gracefully without being re-thrown or explicitly logged using `telemetryClient.TrackException()`, Application Insights does not automatically detect them. Developers must explicitly log these handled exceptions to ensure they appear in the telemetry.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every AZ-204 question from scratch — 881 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-204 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-204 exam.