The first step is going to be the archiving, hopefully in the next day or two, then Mike's diagnostic suggestions, then I will approach the Azure SQL issue again.
Unfortunately, this is having to be done in small increments, the client has lived in an on-premises environment for years so convincing them of
"cloud" way of doing things is going to take some time particularly given other technical resources have been advising against Azure SQL and originally, they believed Jiwa couldn't run in Azure SQL until I corrected that error.
Even convincing them that archiving the database, given a copy of what was there now can be taken and kept before it's done has taken some effort and meetings with them.
Unfortunately, as a friend of mine said to me yesterday people don't necessarily understand how things work in the cloud and often don't like stepping outside their comfort zone from a traditional environment mentality.
Put more simply I've learnt not to disagree with Mike when he is right.