# Track remote data on Azure **URL:** \ **Category:** Questions\ **Created:** [March 9, 2022, 10:32am UTC](https://discuss.dvc.org/t/track-remote-data-on-azure/1110 "2022-03-09T10:32:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MarcosFS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MarcosFS](https://discuss.dvc.org/u/MarcosFS)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 10:32am UTC](https://discuss.dvc.org/t/track-remote-data-on-azure/1110/1 "2022-03-09T10:32:41Z")
Hello DVC community! I’m currently trying out DVC on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, with Python 3.8.10, on WSL2 with Windows 10. I am running into some seemingly inconsistent issues trying to track ZIP files in a remote Azure BLOB Storage container. At least in the initial set-up, I am trying to track those files without downloading them to the local machine. Apologies if this is really a basic question but I a bit stumped at the moment. I used “dvc remote add” and “dvc remote modify”, the generated config / config.local files in the .dvc folder look good. I added a valid connection string for the Azure storage account with those commands, then I also added that connection string to my environment with: > export AZURE\_STORAGE\_CONNECTION\_STRING=‘myconnectionstring’ I am trying the following command: > dvc import-url azure://[mycontainer]/[myfile] --to-remote The remote is another BLOB container in the same Storage Account where the files that I want to track are located. Yesterday I managed to use the “_import-url … --to-remote_” command even though the .dvc files that were created locally landed in the wrong folder (my mistake with paths etc). Today I am simply getting the error: > ERROR: unexpected error - : ‘azure’ If I try to run: > dvc import-url azure://[mycontainer]/[myfile] ./path/to/local/folder/ --to-remote The error I get is: > ERROR: failed to import azure://[mycontainer]/[myzipfilename]. You could also try downloading it manually, and adding it with `dvc add`. - bad DVC file name ‘path/to/local/folder/[myzipfilename].dvc’ is git-ignored. Same error as the above appears if I move into the folder where I want the .dvc files to land and run the dvc import-url command from there, regardless of whether I do this with specifying the output file name or not. EDIT: I ran it with -v and this is what I get: > 2022-03-09 11:39:09,229 DEBUG: Lockfile for ‘dvc.yaml’ not found > 2022-03-09 11:39:09,231 ERROR: unexpected error - : ‘azure’ Somehow there is no lock file, seems I am missing something super basic ☹ SECOND EDIT: If I run the import-url command from the root project folder without specifying a path that is different from this project root, it works, with the “problem” that the local .dvc file is in the root and not in a subdirectory where I actually want it to be. I still get the “Lockfile for ‘dvc.yaml’ not found” debug msg but then “Computing md5 for a large file …” indicating that the command “works”. I am getting more confused by the minute lol. Any ideas how I can fix this? Thanks a bunch in advance! ---
**Author:** ![YanxiangGao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/f04885/32.png) [@YanxiangGao](https://discuss.dvc.org/u/YanxiangGao)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 1:53pm UTC](https://discuss.dvc.org/t/track-remote-data-on-azure/1110/2 "2022-03-09T13:53:07Z")
Looks like several different questions. First, could you please provide some details about the first `ERROR: unexpected error - : ‘azure’` You can get it from `dvc import-url azure://[mycontainer]/[myfile] --to-remote -vv` Second, for `dvc import-url azure://[mycontainer]/[myfile] ./path/to/local/folder/ --to-remote ` it looks like your `‘path/to/local/folder/[myzipfilename].dvc’ is git-ignored.` To solve this , you need either modify your `.gitignore` to delete the pattern or switch to a different path. `2022-03-09 11:39:09,229 DEBUG: Lockfile for ‘dvc.yaml’ not found` is only a DEBUG message, `‘dvc.yaml’` is not required in your case. > If I run the import-url command from the root project folder without specifying a path that is different from this project root, it works, with the “problem” that the local .dvc file is in the root and not in a subdirectory where I actually want it to be. I still get the “Lockfile for ‘dvc.yaml’ not found” debug msg but then “Computing md5 for a large file …” indicating that the command “works”. looks like it can work on your root path, so I guess what you need to do is to make some modification on your `.gitignore` file. For example, add an exclude rule `!*.dvc` to make any kind of `.dvc` file being tracked by `Git`(But may not so easy, more details in [Git - gitignore Documentation](https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore)) ---
**Author:** ![MarcosFS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MarcosFS](https://discuss.dvc.org/u/MarcosFS)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2022, 9:12am UTC](https://discuss.dvc.org/t/track-remote-data-on-azure/1110/3 "2022-03-11T09:12:55Z")
Hi Yanxiang, you were spot on, your comment seems to have fixed everything. I removed a .gitignore file and voilà. My simple DVC pipeline runs. I actually did not start this repo from scratch but from a colleague which was tracking files locally instead of from azure. There was a .gitignore next to directory where those files were. They are not there anymore now, but on Azure, so I removed that .gitignore and everything is flowing. Thank you!