What does HRESULT 0xC037010D (ERROR_VMCOMPUTE_INVALID_JSON) mean?

ERROR_VMCOMPUTE_INVALID_JSON

HCS configuration is a structured JSON contract, not an opaque command line

ERROR_VMCOMPUTE_INVALID_JSON is returned when the JSON document supplied to an HCS API cannot be accepted. The failure may be lexical JSON syntax, a wrong value type, a missing required object, an unsupported schema version or a property placed in the wrong configuration section.

Logging only the high-level container options is insufficient when an orchestration layer generated the final HCS document. The exact UTF-16 configuration passed to the API is the artifact that must be validated, with secrets redacted but structure preserved.

Evidence and corrective action

• Capture the final generated document before the HCS call and validate it with a strict JSON parser.
• Compare SchemaVersion and property names with the HCS schema supported by the target host.
• Check numeric, Boolean, array and object types; quoted numbers can be syntactically valid JSON yet invalid for the schema.
• Look for truncation, incorrect escaping of Windows paths and duplicate serialization layers.
• Do not change container image layers until the configuration document itself is accepted.

References

• Microsoft: HCS JSON schema reference
• Microsoft: HcsCreateComputeSystem
• Microsoft: hcsshim HCS schema source