Unable to update VM with nodejs app on Google App Engine - node.js

Question

When I try to deploy from the gcloud CLI I get the following error.
Copying files to Google Cloud Storage...
Synchronizing files to [gs://staging.logically-abstract-www-site.appspot.com/].
Updating module [default]...\Deleted [https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/logically-abstract-www-site/zones/us-central1-f/instances/gae-builder-vm-20151030t150724].
Updating module [default]...failed.
ERROR: (gcloud.preview.app.deploy) Error Response: [4] Timed out creating VMs.
My app.yaml is:
runtime: nodejs
vm: true
api_version: 1
automatic_scaling:
min_num_instances: 2
max_num_instances: 20
cool_down_period_sec: 60
cpu_utilization:
target_utilization: 0.5
and I am logged in successfully and have the correct project ID. I see the new version created in the Cloud Console for App Engine, but the error is after that it seems.
In the stdout log I see both instances go up with the last console.log statement I put in the app after it starts listening on the port, but in the shutdown.log I see "app was unhealthy" and in syslog I see "WARNING: never got healthy response from app, but sending /_ah/start query anyway."

Answer 1

From my experience with nodejs using Google Cloud App Engine, I see that "Timed out creating VMs" is neither a traditional timeout nor does it have to do with creating VMs. I had found that other errors were reported during the launch of the server --which happens to be right after VMs are created. So, I recommend checking console output to see if it tells you anything.
To see the console output:
For a vm instance, then go to /your/ vm instances and click the vm instance you want, then scroll towards the bottom and click "Serial console output".
For stdout console logging, go monitoring /your/ logs then change the log type dropdown from Request to be stdout.
I had found differences in the process.env when running locally versus in the cloud. I hope you find your solution too --good luck!