Hi Guys,

I had the same issue here. In my case (lab environment), I was trying to update the VC 7.0.3 to the VC 8.0.2:

From: vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3n
To: vCenter Server 8.0 Update 2

I mounted the VC 8.0 U2 ISO file and ran the "installer.exe" choosing the Upgrade option. During stage 02, I had the same error "An error occurred while starting service 'vc-ws1a-broker'".

I tested 2 solutions to fix this issue:

1. After stage 01, the upgrade process will shut down VC 7.0.3 and "transfer" the FQDN and IP address to the new VC (8.0.2). At this time, I accessed the new VC by SSH and removed the line "search ." on the /etc/resolv.conf file. It worked fine here!

2. The second test that I did was to edit the /etc/resolv.conf file on the VC 7.0.3 before starting the upgrade process. I added the below line on the /etc/resolv.conf:
echo "search lab.local" >> /etc/resolv.conf

Note: lab.local is my local domain name --> This is a lab environment.

I know that is a bad way to edit the /etc/resolv.conf, but for this purpose, it worked fine!

After that, I started the "installer.exe" and did the upgrade process. The upgrade occurred perfectly!
I do not know if there is an issue related to the DNS or some lookup process that depends on the "search" parameter on the /etc/resolv.conf, but these "tips" solved the issue here!

To add the "search" parameter permanently to the /etc/resolv.conf:

-- Making a backup of the file /etc/systemd/resolved.conf:
cp /etc/systemd/resolved.conf /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.backup

-- Editing the file /etc/systemd/resolved.conf and adding the "Domains" instruction, for example:

Domains=lab.local

-- Restarting the "systemd-resolved" service:

service systemd-resolved restart