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OVF deployment problems after upgrading to 6.5

I have a Win7 box with VMware Workstation 12.5 installed where I build all of the OVFs required by my team.

Recently I upgraded from vSphere 6 to 6.5 and that comes of course with the pain point made mandatory -  the web client.

It's not enough that everything I need to do going from thick client to web client is now scattered all over the place like going from XP to Win10 without trying to miss a beat.

Something major that I need to do, deploying OVFs isn't even working anymore...

First things first, I'm in vcenter and deploy the OVF after maybe 30 minutes right at the end of the deployment received an error regarding a checksum on the manifest file.  Well this is umm, your manifest file VMware created by the latest version of VMware Workstation. Hmm.

So I've traversed a few roads with this OVF stuff over the years, I checked into the virtual hardware, it's a new server 2016 VM I'm trying to deploy so I wanted to make sure I didn't have anything messed up with virtual hardware versions or virtual hardware types that have been problematic in prior versions.  Nope, everything looks to be ok.

Second try at deploying -- during the browse to files I didn't select the manifest file, I left it out, the import appears to be successful, no checksum errors. 

Attempt to boot up the VM and receive this message:

A disk read error occurred

Press control + alt + del to restart

Hmm, is this OVF corrupt?  So I re-export it from Workstation and redeploy it... same error.

Do I have SAN issues?  Redeployed to a different datastore on a different array... same error.

Is there like some incompatibility with the virtual SCSI controller on 6.5?  I am running LSI Logic SAS, should be fine.  I tried one or two others, ... same error.

Upgraded the virtual hardware, ... same error.

Upgraded the OVF tool VMware Workstation uses to the latest version available 4.2..re-export OVF, import, ... same error.

Eventually hit google and see a bunch of stuff in the 6.5 release notes for OVF, nothing however seems to match up exactly with what I'm seeing here.

Spoke with a couple of co-workers who claimed to have deployed the same OVFs that I built for them on standalone ESXi 6.5 (no vcenter) and claimed to have not experienced this issue!

Now I go to one of the standalone ESXi 6 servers that I have admin rights on in another dept.  Deploy the same OVF, it deploys with no error and boots right up.

Hmm, so now I shut down the VM and export it from the stand alone ESXi server, import it to my 6.5 vSphere, same error, disk read error.

So that rules out Workstation but can anyone tell me what's going on with this? 

I have wasted a good portion of several days on this issue and seem no further along to understanding it.

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AdrianTT
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I can confirm that the issue you are experiencing is still present in vSphere 6.5 as per Re: Unable to deploy OVF/OVA Template - vCenter 6.5d (Build 5318154)  the easiest work around is to deploy the OVA/OVF using a direct connection to the host (https://<HostIPorHostName>/ui), or use the OVF Tool CLI

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you think your query have been answered correctly. Cheers,

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DeepikaG
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iLikeMoney
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Thanks for the kb, granted this is not the error I'm receiving nor am I using the appliance but I will investigate how it might impact my windows vcenter.

Failing that, I would hope there are other workarounds besides command-line deployment of OVFs. That would have to be a last resort.

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PCTechStream
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Try this! VMware vSphere 6.5 OVF Package Compressed Disks Not Supported OVF Import

LINK: VMware vSphere 6.5 OVF Package Compressed Disks Not Supported OVF Import - Zero To Hero

NOTE:

Follow the steps on the link & before you deploy use WinRAR and delete the manifest file .mf and re-import using the extracted files which should not include the manifest file

Raul.

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iLikeMoney
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Thanks for the link.  It's good info but seems to be a different issue than what I'm seeing.

What I'm going to attempt next is to install the latest patches on my ESXi servers. I will report back if it helps.

Finding it extremely hard to believe that OVF deployment via the web client doesn't work at all on 6.5 vcenter, I don't know if this is just something specific to my own setup or if everyone is seeing this behavior.

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iLikeMoney
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Patched both ESXi servers in the cluster.  I was on 6.5.0.4564106  and now using the update manager I have them at 6.5.0.5310538

Now when I attempt to deploy an OVF to see if the patching helped I receive the following message:

This version of vCenter Server does not support Deploy OVF Template using this version of vSphere Web Client.  To Deploy OVF Template, login with version 6.5.0.0 of vSphere Web Client.

So now in the vSphere Web Client I go to Help>About   where it shows:

vSphere Web Client Version 6.5.0 Build 5178943

Is there some other rev of the web client that matches 6.5.0.0 ?    I must say it's all very interesting, and not in a good way. 

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PCTechStream
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***

OVF deployments fail on upgraded vCSA

You see the error:

"This version of vCenter Server does not support Deploy OVF Template using this version of vSphere Web Client. To Deploy OVF Template, login with version 6.5.0.0 of vSphere Web Client."

This issue is resolved in VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 b, available at VMware Downloads.

LINK: Download VMware vSphere

***

To work around this issue, deploy OVF files using the command line. For more information, see the OVF Tool Documentation.

LINK: OVF Tool Documentation

Raul.

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http://ITCloudStream.com/

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AdrianTT
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I can confirm that the issue you are experiencing is still present in vSphere 6.5 as per Re: Unable to deploy OVF/OVA Template - vCenter 6.5d (Build 5318154)  the easiest work around is to deploy the OVA/OVF using a direct connection to the host (https://<HostIPorHostName>/ui), or use the OVF Tool CLI

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you think your query have been answered correctly. Cheers,
iLikeMoney
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I was just about to report back regarding direct connection to the host OVF deployment is in fact working (post-patching) now so your reply is very timely, thanks for helping.  

In my case there were still a number of hoops to jump through to get it working, one was I had to ditch IE for chrome and then install a newer version of flash on my machine (which oddly enough prompted me to reboot) and after direct connection to a host using the chrome browser I was able to deploy the OVF (finally),   IE actually complained that the OVF exceeded 4GB so Chrome was the only path forward anyway.

Another thing to add is that when I deploy the OVF via direct connection to the host and the OVF first starts to deploy I notice in the task list the following:

Task: Reconfig VM   Initiator : VC Internal   Result:  'Failed - the operation is not allowed in the current state' 

This error is then immediately followed by other tasks:  Upload disk (which is the VMDK of the OVF)  and 'Import VApp'.

Finally at this point the upload of the VMDK took far longer than it typically does which had me expecting it to fail right at the end but it was ok and booted fine.

For an OVF of this size 13GB I am typically able to deploy it in 30 minutes or so, but this took nearly 5 hours to deploy.  So there's apparently some I/O issue going on here or some interference due to vcenter being in this mix but I'm happy to at least report that it finally works.  The time is problematic but as a workaround I can deploy something before I leave work every night, convert it to a template once it's on there and should be ok.  

Cheers.

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LeslieBNS9
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Looks like there is a fix now with KB2151085. It worked for me after upgrading to VCSA 6.5 Update 1.

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gsudha
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gsudha
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Work around:

1. Remove one ESXi server from vCenter server with shared storage.

2. Deploy the OVF (login to removed esxi with rood access-->File -->deploy ovf-->next ..... finish)

3.Add this esxi server again to the vCenter cluster or remove the deployed vm from the inventory and register in to vCenter server  with respective cluster.

4. power on the vm.

or

VMware Knowledge Base

regards,

Desertsweeper
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OP: "Recently I upgraded from vSphere 6 to 6.5 and that comes of course with the pain point made mandatory -  the web client."

I too landed up here looking for help with this. I just moved from ESXi 5.5 to 6.5 and discovered the pain of the web-client. This is Deja Vu...when MS unleashed Windows 8 on the world. I mean seriously - what is wrong with the simplicity and elegance of the the old vSphere client? It worked and it worked well. Everything was where it should be, and it is responsive and dedicated to the job at hand. But most importantly, it was intuitive. This new web story is everything but. It is lethargic, counter-intuitive and totally unnecessary. Change for the sake of change, not improvement. big thumbs down.

Oh and I just got this: "Unhandled exception (1). Unfortunately, we hit an error that we weren't expecting. The client blah blah"

The point is that the management system is now at the mercy of the browser...so you get all kinds of problems. IE won't upload a file larger than 4GB. Chrome has other issues. Firefox seems best...but hey the DEDICATED CLIENT was just that: DEDICATED.

scarpent
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Try it from Firefox. IE failed every time, but FF worked right out of the gate.

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