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LumH
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Running first installation of VCSA 6.7 in VMWare Workstation 14 - left with a blank screen

Setup

  • Closed lab (no internet access)
  • One Physical switch
  • 4 working ESXi VM Hosts
  • One Windows 10 Pro PC - with installed VMWare Workstation 14
  • 2 other Windows 10 Pro PCs
  • All static IP addresses;   No Servers (no active directory), DHCP, Domain Controllers, etc.
  • All VMWare products are currently evaluation licenses.

Note: newbie user...

Description:

So, I've set up a lab environment with ESXi VM Hosts (mix of 6.5 and 6.7), populated with VM guests (Windows 10, FreeNAS, VyOS) - everything works as it should.

I'm trying to incorporate vCenter into the picture:

  • With the VCSA 6.7 DVD (from .iso), tried to install the .ova as a VM in VMW-Workstation 14
  • Entered information in all the configuration sections - Network, SSO, root password, etc., but I skipped the "Upgrade" section.
  • Configured the VCSA as "VSC with embedded PSC", "tiny" sizing option.

When the VCSA VM plays, I see:

  • photon splash screen
  • photon login prompt  (for a few seconds)
  • bunch of log messages
    • sda disk caches messages
    • [OK] DCUI started
    • [OK] DCDI stopped
    • etc...

And then, I get a blank screen with a "_"

I'm able to get the Photon login prompt if I use ALT-F1/ALT-F2  (just like for the ESXi VM Host) but I cannot login using the root/password entered at the VM configuration.

Appreciate any help for troubleshooting this situation.

Thanks!

8 Replies
daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal

If you do not have fully functional DNS and NTP you will not be able to successfully install the vCSA. These are considered core, basic infrastructure services upon which many other solutions depend, and you must have them in place to bring up a functional vSphere.

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LumH
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks daphnissov...

You're right, I probably would have needed to have DNS and NTP servers set up.

However, after I installed those services, I was still getting the "blank screen".

I "think" I had left the "Gateway IP" blank during the VCSA 6.7 VM network configuration (I did that because this was a closed lab with no Internet access).

In the end, I entered an IP address that was not connected to any existing host, e.g. 192.168.1.1, and after that it completed the VM install.

Appreciate your input!

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bilalraziq
Contributor
Contributor

Someone manage to resolve this problem ....what was the issue in this case ..Unfortunately i have the same issue

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bilalraziq
Contributor
Contributor

i have exact same problem ..

My dhcp is running assigning correct ip address and hostname (i also installed dhcp for ipv6 just to make sure its not dhcp issue)

DNS and NTP is running  on the same machine and the reverse lookup is also fine for the vcsa.

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TZHAO9
Contributor
Contributor

same here,solution found yet?

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TryllZ
Expert
Expert

I am not sure if this will work for you.

I have been attempting the same for the last 2 days and having the same black screen, however I used the following version which did not face this issue.

VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.7.0.10000-8217866_OVF10.

But here is how I configured it.

I only filled in the Network Configuration part and imported.

I have an AD DNS server with A and PTR records added before importing.

I have NOT used any FQDN, only IP addresses.

Hope this helps.

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altlaw
Contributor
Contributor

do not use the OVA or OVF to deploy.

there is an executable on the ISO with an interactive install to deploy it,

Gilbertr14
Contributor
Contributor

Agree with altlaw​, running the installation from ISO:\vcsa-ui-installer\win32\installer.exe works every time. Ive never been able to get the template to deploy correctly.

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