Introduction.

While making a small update to an analytics rule in Microsoft Sentinel, I hit an unexpected roadblock. I tried saving the rule, and Sentinel threw this error:

Failed to save analytics rule '[REDACTED]'. Conflict: Newer instance of rule '[REDACTED]' exists for workspace '[REDACTED]' (ETag does not match). Data was not saved.

This happens when the rule has been modified elsewhere (e.g., by another user), and Sentinel uses an ETag to detect those changes. It's designed to stop you from accidentally overwriting a newer version — but in this case, it just blocked me from saving a minor update.

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What I Did Instead.

Rather than digging into ARM templates or scripting around it, I took a simple approach:

1. Duplicated the rule manually.

2. Adjusted the rule name slightly (just capitalised the words).

3. Applied my change.

4. Disabled the original rule.

5. Tested the new one.

6. Deleted the old rule once everything checked out.

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Quick, Clean, Done.

Is this the "correct" or Microsoft-recommended solution? Probably not.

But for a low-risk edit in a controlled environment, this workaround saved time and avoided unnecessary overhead.

If Sentinel ever throws an ETag conflict your way, and the change is minor — starting fresh might be faster than fighting it.