Bicep commands fails due to error in version check

[pgelinas]

Bicep version

> az bicep version                                     
Bicep CLI version 0.38.33 (6bb5d5f859)

Describe the bug Running a bicep command that should only affect local resources, such as build, decompile, lint, etc. fails when downloads.bicep.azure.com is unavailable.

> az bicep build-params -f ./parameters/main.bicepparam
Error while attempting to retrieve the latest Bicep version: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='downloads.bicep.azure.com', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /releases/latest (Caused by NameResolutionError("<urllib3.connection.HTTPSConnection object at 0x7fc916e865d0>: Failed to resolve 'downloads.bicep.azure.com' ([Errno -2] Name or service not known)")).

To Reproduce Block the host locally by changing the /etc/hosts configuration to send this domain to a invalid location, or to a location that does not answer. Run any "local" bicep command.

Additional context Due to the Azure Front Door outage on October 29th 2025, local commands were affected. Some colleagues reported very long execution time before failure, as it seemed like the Http timeout configuration was very long.

[stephaniezyen]

Thanks for the issue, just to confirm, did you already have Bicep CLI installed when this issue occurred?

Are you still running into this issue today?

[jstebenne]

@stephaniezyen I'm @pgelinas's colleague. We are running the CLI in a containerized environment and noticed the issue in an already running container, so the CLI was already installed and working fine before the outage on October 29th.

We do not have the issue currently with our normal usage. Everything started working as expected once the outage was over.

[microsoft-github-policy-service[bot]]

Hi @@pgelinas, this issue has been marked as stale because it was labeled as requiring author feedback but has not had any activity for 7 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 3 days of this comment. Thanks for contributing to bicep! :smile: :mechanical_arm:

[anthony-c-martin]

Reopening as this is a valid issue