Azure deployment stuck Preparing node

Problem We recently had a case where a role was stuck in this state.  So on the portal, the deployment line said “Initializing” and the role says “Preparing Node” and it never moves past this.  We cannot remote in using RDP or anything else to see what is happening with the deployment.  The error looks like:

Turns out one problem that can cause this is if you are using Unicode file names.   During ...