How do you know if the installation has finished/failed? It might take a while for vCenter to update the status.

Have you tried logging out & back into into vSphere?

Im not sure how this "update" state got started. None of the VM's in this state are actually installing tools.

They have been booted, no CD's are mounted, but I can't clear this state.

The tools are definately not being updated at this time. This has bene in this state for weeks and im trying to find a way to clear this out.

In this case, I'd restart vCenter services or the appliance/server itself. This should clear all "in progress" messages.

Restarting vCenter services: VMware Knowledge Base 

When you right click on the Virtual Machine > Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools or End VMware Tools.

Do you see all the options are grayed out ?

I restarted the vcenter appliance, but it's still showing the VM's as "upgrade in progress".

You said:

When you right click on the Virtual Machine > Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools or End VMware Tools.

Im not sure where to find this set of links. Can you be more specific on what I have to navigate to and how to get there?

1 ) Please login to vCenter through vSphere Client or Web Client.

2 ) Please right click on the VM ( which is in progress state ) you will see "Guest" > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools or End VMware Tools.

Do you see all the options are grayed out ?

I found a menu item called "Unmount VMWare tools installer", but it doesn't have any effect, the VM still shows that tools installing, even though it's not and there is no CD mounted.

I cannot locate any menu items which shows "Install/Upgrade VMware Tools or END VMware Tools".

I did find

However, the "Unmount VMware Tools Installer" reports success but the status of the tools install does not change. It's still reporting as installing.

Do you have multiple vms on the same state ?

I had 3 VM's in this state, Using the "unmount" worked on 2 of them but the 3rd is still stuck.

Ok, here's what you need to do:

1. Connect by SSH to your vCenter Server

2. Run the following command to get a process ID number (replace the vm_name)

vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep "vm_name"

3. The first number on left is your process ID number

4. Kill the installation process (replace the id_number)

vim-cmd vmsvc/tools.cancelinstall id_number

You can try to reload the vmx if you have downtime.

You can power off the vm and then remove the vm from the Inventory and try to re-register.

Note : Please copy the location before removing the vm from the Inventory.

Command> vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep LDAP

Unknown command: `vim-cmd'

Command> shell

Shell access is granted to root

root@vcsa [ ~ ]# vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep LDAP

bash: vim-cmd: command not found

root@vcsa [ ~ ]#

Sorry, my bad - that's an ESXi command not vCenter. Try again after connecting through SSH to ESXi host running affected VM

[root@esxi2:~] vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep LDAP

52     LDAP     [esxi2] LDAP/LDAP.vmx        centos64Guest   vmx-08

[root@esxi2:~] vim-cmd vmsvc/tools.cancelinstall 52

[root@esxi2:~] vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep LDAP

52     LDAP     [esxi2] LDAP/LDAP.vmx        centos64Guest   vmx-08

Still showing error due to tools install.

I will try to un-register and re-register the VM, but since it will require downtime that has to be scheduled, not something I can do at this time.

Thanks