Virtual Center 6.7U1b upgrade fails with: Update installation failed, vCenter is non-operational

by Grzegorz Kulikowski

In order to reproduce, get a VC/PSC 6.7 . Make the /storage/log full 100% . Installation fails with unexpected problem.

2019-03-07 14_29_49-host1.greg.labs - VMware ESXi.png

Step two, you clean up the /storage/log a bit and it still fails.

2019-03-07 14_31_15-host1.greg.labs - VMware ESXi.png

After this i made sure that there is 98% free.  And same error occurs.

You can reboot PSC/VC as many times as you want, that  does not help. In order to fix it, login to your VC/PSC box and delete file:

/etc/applmgmt/appliance/software_update_state.conf

After file is gone, or moved , go back to installer and click update -> it works !

Have a look what was causing the error :

2019-03-08 13_23_22-vCenter Server Appliance11.png

And the installer script was looking at it hence failing while spotting INSTAL_FAILED with this cryptic error message that the vcenter is not operational

/usr/lib/applmgmt/update/py/vmware/appliance/update/update_state.py

2019-03-08 13_26_13-vc001-psc001 - VMware Remote Console33.png

Many thanks to Ciaran from @VMware  for spotting that!

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20 comments

Anonymous June 10, 2019 - 5:52 am

good stuff! Same issue here. I updated the state file to show “UPDATES_PENDING” and saved the file. After that, patching works via web gui!

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Anonymous June 21, 2019 - 4:35 pm

Great!, Thanks, solved it.

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Anonymous September 2, 2019 - 6:39 am

Thanks!!
//Johan

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Anonymous December 29, 2019 - 9:59 am

WOW Thanks !!!

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vmdude March 4, 2020 - 11:41 pm

Dude you ROCK! Thanks so much made short work of what is a weird issue.

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psvmware March 5, 2020 - 9:07 am

no worries Dude, glad it worked 😉

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Anonymous March 20, 2020 - 9:02 pm

been searching for the answer for months! thanks soo much!

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psvmware April 14, 2020 - 10:53 am

no worries 😉 glad it worked !

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German April 13, 2020 - 4:47 am

excelente procedimiento, muchas gracias.

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psvmware April 14, 2020 - 10:54 am

you welcome 😉 cool that it worked out for you.

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blackjack82 May 12, 2020 - 10:42 pm

This worked for me as well, thank you!

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Anonymous May 20, 2020 - 1:56 pm

Funny – the same issue exists with VC 7.0. Gotta love that product quality coming out of VMware these days…

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psvmware May 20, 2020 - 2:00 pm

hehe 😉 i guess they did not see this post

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Anonymous May 20, 2020 - 11:52 pm

Let me guess. You tried to update, it said that the update didn’t exist? They seem to release the update notice that vCenter sees before actually fully pushing out to their CDN.

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Jason Boche (@jasonboche) June 4, 2020 - 6:40 pm

Nice job and thank you for sharing. This issue still exists in vCenter Server 7 GA.

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Anonymous June 24, 2020 - 11:33 pm

Adding to the pile, still happened in 7!

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psvmware June 25, 2020 - 9:07 am

😉 Glad it still helps hehehe 😉 I should never remove this posts , can be valid for many years hehe

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Anonymous August 18, 2020 - 6:05 pm

Also helped getting a blocked update from 7.0.0.10300 to 7.0.0.10600 rolling… unbelievable, that such a basic error still exists after such a long time 🙁

I was about to download the update manually (the .iso is hidden on https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/patch – not on the vCenter download page!!), but now it seems to work online…

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Wojciech Marusiak June 6, 2021 - 10:25 pm

Thanks for your help man. Fixed 7.0.* update.

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Grzegorz Kulikowski June 7, 2021 - 8:55 am

This is getting hilarious 😉 2021 and this is still not fixed, glad it helped Wojtek.

Reply

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