vcenter server 6.5u1 clean install fails

[rpoulk]

I'm installing (or trying to install) vCenter Server 6.5 on a Windows 2016 server. The install fails and leaves this error in the App Event log:

[6976]autodeploy-register:ERROR:error: cannot conect to vCenter.

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "autodeploy-register", line 407, in main

  File "pyVmomi\VmomiSupport.pyo", line 551, in __call__

  File "pyVmomi\VmomiSupport.pyo", line 371, in _InvokeAccessor

  File "pyVmomi\StubAdapterAccessorImpl.pyo", line 23, in InvokeAccessor

  File "pyVmomi\SoapAdapter.pyo", line 1300, in InvokeMethod

  File "pyVmomi\SoapAdapter.pyo", line 1366, in GetConnection

  File "pyVmomi\SoapAdapter.pyo", line 1057, in __call__

HTTPException: 503 Service Unavailable (Error connecting tunnel on TCP socket: (null))

This is not an upgrade, it's a clean install. Ive flattened the server and put a new OS on it and it still fails. Anyone know what's up?

RP

[daphnissov]

Out of curiosity, why trying to install vCenter on Windows rather than deploying the appliance when you could sidestep this whole issue?

[rpoulk]

No disrespect intended, but I'm only trying to get a product that's designed to be installed and to run on Windows to actually install and run on Windows. A bit I forgot to include in the initial post is that we are tasked with upgrading a very dynamic virtualized product test environment from 5.5 to 6.5 and need to know exactly how many little nasties we need to accommodate in the process, so we set up a 6.5 vSphere test deployment consisting only of 2 hosts and 1 vCenter (well, zero at the moment -- somebody give whoever thought to add the local web client to ESXi 6.5 -- it's been a lifesaver!). This problem popped up the second time we installed vCenter Server for Windows v6.5u1 on the same Windows server. The first install succeeded, as I reported earlier, but for reasons not germane to the issue at hand had to be taken down. The problem started showing up when we tried to re-install. We've since formatted the HDs and reinstalled Windows 3 times (working on #4), and have moved up to the latest installer (7515524) and can't get past the "failed to register autodeploy" point. The failure is so consistent that , frankly, I'm seriously surprised that out of all the reports of similar troubles I've read in the last week nobody knows what's wrong or even how to work around it.