Error when enable "All versions and deletes change feed mode" feature of Cosmos DB in Government Environment

Hello Marcus Nguyen,

Greetings! Thanks for raising this question in Q&A forum.

The error message you are seeing is clear about the cause: your subscription has not yet been registered or whitelisted to use the "All Versions and Deletes" change feed mode. This is a subscription-level registration requirement, and in a Government Cloud environment it requires an extra step because the GA rollout and the self-service Features blade enablement may not yet be fully available in sovereign cloud regions.

Here is the resolution path.

Step 1: Verify continuous backup is enabled first.

The "All Versions and Deletes" change feed mode has a hard prerequisite: your Cosmos DB account must have continuous backup configured. This is because the feature uses the continuous backup log as its underlying mechanism to capture all operations including deletes. If continuous backup is not already enabled, go to your Cosmos DB account > Backup & Restore > Change the backup policy to Continuous (7 days or 30 days). Note that enabling continuous backup is a one-time, non-reversible operation.

Step 2: Try enabling through the Features blade in the portal.

For commercial Azure subscriptions, the feature can now be enabled directly through the portal without a separate registration form in most cases. In the Azure Government portal:

1. Go to your Cosmos DB account.
2. In the left menu under Settings, select Features.
3. Look for All Versions and Deletes Change Feed Mode and select Enable.

If you see this option and clicking Enable still returns the same BadRequest subscription registration error, it confirms that the Government Cloud subscription has not been provisioned for this feature on the backend.

Step 3: Email the Cosmos DB team directly for Government Cloud registration.

For Government Cloud subscriptions, the self-service enrollment path is often not available and requires Microsoft to manually register the subscription on the backend. The official contact for this is:

cosmoschangefeed@microsoft.com

In your email, include:

• Your Government subscription ID
• The Cosmos DB account name and resource group
• The region where the account is deployed (for example, USGov Virginia, USGov Arizona)
• A brief description that you are trying to enable the "All Versions and Deletes" change feed mode and receive the subscription registration error

The Cosmos DB product team handles these requests and will confirm once your subscription has been registered.

Step 4: Open an Azure Support ticket as a parallel path.

If you need this unblocked urgently and want to follow a formal channel in parallel, open a support ticket through the Government portal:

1. Go to Help + Support > New support request.
2. For Issue type, select Technical.
3. For Service, select Azure Cosmos DB.
4. In the description, include your subscription ID, the exact error message with the Activity ID and Correlation ID, and state that you are in a Government Cloud environment and need the subscription registered for the All Versions and Deletes change feed feature.

Important note about GA status in Government Cloud: While the All Versions and Deletes change feed mode recently reached General Availability in commercial Azure, GA availability in Azure Government Cloud regions typically lags behind commercial regions. It is possible that the feature is not yet GA in your specific Government region, which would explain why the subscription registration requirement is still being enforced. The support ticket or the email to cosmoschangefeed@microsoft.com will clarify whether the feature is available in your region and can initiate the subscription enablement.

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Best Regards,

Jerald Felix.