Windows Azure error: An unsupported response was received. The response header ‘MSDeploy.Response’ was ” but ‘v1’ was expected.

You may get the following error when deploying your web application from Visual Studio to Windows Azure using WebDeploy: Remote agent could not be contacted. Make sure the remote agent service is installed and started on the target computer. An unsupported response was received. The response header ‘MSDeploy.Response’ was ” but ‘v1’ was expected. The request was aborted: The request was canceled. COM object that has been separated from its underlying RCW cannot be used.

If you monitor your HTTPS traffic you can find out that response to WebDeploy request was error 401 (not authenticated). Although I don’t know what is the exact source of this error there is simple solution: close Visual Studio and then run it again. Now you should be able to deploy your application.