cannot install the vcenter agent service. cannot upload agent

[Oldnick]

subj on ESXi 4.0.0 host.

My trouble like in this post, but host restat not help.

Configuration:

Host 1 (ESXi 3.5) -> some VMs, managed by vCenter.

Host 2 (ESXi 4.0.0)>1 vm (win2003SE 32) with vCenter installed.

Then i try add host to datacenter hapenning error:

"Cannot install the vCenter agent service. Cannot upload agent"

Manually tries to run service "VMWare vCenter agent" in Configuration\Services menu return this strange error:

"Start service

Error during the configuration of the host:"

That all text of error.

[blindman2k]

Me too

I installed ESXi 4.0.0 in Evaluation mode on two host servers and I want to cluster them together. I put 5 VMs on one host and none on the other. Other than that they should be the same configuration. The host with the VM's fails with "Cannot install the vCenter agent service" while the host without the VM's works fine. Both have root access enabled and I rebooted them both.

Anyone have a solution for this yet?

[AndreTheGiant]

Just to be sure...

Which version of vCenter Server hare you using?

Andre

**if you found this or any other answer useful please consider allocating points for helpful or correct answers

[blindman2k]

I downloaded the latest versions. I believe 4.0.0.

The problem "resolved itself" just as I had given up hope. I removed all VMs from the host and tried again.Amazingly it worked and has continued to work perfecly since.

A.

[physicalRH]

I have the same problem. ESXi 4.0.0 on AMD DL385 G5p. FIrst the status column shows a progress bar that goes to 19%, then hangs and finally the error is "cannot install the vcenter agent service. Unknown installer error"

[jmcdonald1]

if you collect a support bundle from the system and go to the: var/log/vmware/ directory, there should be a vpx install file in there. If you open this file it will allow you to see the error which was generated when the agent install failed.

From past experience, I have seen that this error ususally means that there is not enough "contiguous" memory available to extract the tgz file. If this is the case, stop some of the VM's that are running on the system which should allow for the install to proceed.

Cheers,

/Jonathan

[physicalRH]

Got it. Stopping all the guest vms did not fix it. But restarting the host did fix it. Now I have a datacenter with a host and vms; yipee! Thanks!

[physicalRH]

How do I allocate points?

>>>

From: jmcdonald <communities-emailer@vmware.com>

To: Richard Halstead <rhalstead@village-bank.com>

Date: 7/23/2009 7:46 AM

Subject: New message: "cannot install the vcenter agent service. cannot upload agent"

Richard Halstead,

A new message was posted in the thread "cannot install the vcenter agent service. cannot upload agent":

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1318782#1318782

Author : jmcdonald

Profile : http://communities.vmware.com/people/jmcdonald

Message:

[QuorumCharlie]

Apologies - this is going to sound spurious but I got the vCenter Agent service started by going into the settings on each VM and then changing:

Video card &gt; Auto-detect video settings

Once this had been done on all VM's the agent service started fine.

[bulletprooffool]

Usually, the vpxa agent not installing is symptomatic of the ESX not being licensed (ie, you are using the free version of ESXi)

Check your licensing information to ensure that you have the full license assigned.

If this ESX host is the free version of ESXi, you will not be able to install vpxa

[jmcdonald1]

bulletprooffool wrote:

If this ESX host is the free version of ESXi, you will not be able to install vpxa

This is incorrect, since ESXi is manageable by vCenter. VPXA is required to be able to attach a server into a vCenter instance.

[ShaneMartin]

Had the same problem. Was using ESXi Eval licence and it did not have the vCentre agent licence included.

Did not work till I installed the vSphere enterprise license on the ESXi host.

[vanSijll]

Hi there all,

Hope that it has all resolved at your site, but I had the same issue, but solved it myself, I had to deal with the Licensing within ESXi4.0upd1 - because I could get ESX running on the hardware we had purchased - we had to deal with some financial issues, and so on....

So purchased good, but much cheaper hardware, we still needed the same project getting finnished within a short pariod of time, and therefor, assuming that my 2 ESX4.0update1 Host Servers was already licensed in full, I had to disconnect the clustered-storages with all the VM's on them, downgrade the ESX to ESXi, but used the same version.... (You can't downgrade the ESX version, but you still can downgrade the ESX(i) license!)

0- Disconnected all iSCSI Storage (we used OpenFiler2.x for this, on old, but fast hardware, in a storage-cluster)

1- Re-installed the 2 ESX-Hosts, with ESXi 4.0, used the full-licence to import all old VM's to ESXi.

2- Made Snapshots, Rebooted, downgrade the ESXi License to Trial/Evaluation 60 days (with Full/All options),

3- Connected both ESXi4 with VMware vSphere Client, added the 2 Hosts again,

and because of the grand/sort license, the Agent was now installing, and did not before!

4- After downgraded temporarly the license from full, some options, to 60days, all options,

5- Check all consumed memmory space and commited and used RAM for all VM's including 'the dead onces'

6- After adding the evaluation license for ESX in vSphere, rebooted the 2 ESX-Hosts once,

Staredup all VM's to check and test if everything was fine and running - and

upgraded after that the Licence again to its 'normal ordered License, while in mean time

the VCenter-Agent was installed, updated, rebooted & running fully!

Hopefully this helps anybody out there...

and if not:

Have a Hapy VM-Wurry!

[marburg]

I had a similar problem but with ESX 4.0.

Maybe this solution will help someone:

The problem may have been, that the vCenter server was on another site far away. I locally installed a temporary vCenter server (technically the same version, no difference from the original installation), in which it worked. The agent could be installed from there as I connected the vCenter server to the local ESX server that was unwilling to be integrated...

After that I just overtook the host from the original vCenter server, which worked fine since the agent was previously installed by the local vCenter server. Maybe this will help someone. Unfortunately I can't really tell the reason for this problem.

Br

marbug

[HamR]

I had the same problem. Four of six ESXi 4.0 U1 servers joined the cluster (same binaries). Ten of ten ESXi 4.1 servers joined. A reboot fixed the two problematic servers and they joined the cluster without issues.

HamR

[snippyy]

In my case the error has been caused by wrong adjustment of reservation parameters of VM pools.
After transfer VMs from pools directly on a host and removals of pools the agent started normally.
Thanks for your answers, they have put me on the right way

See logs for your error description.

[vmkfix-SSA]

ror's:

" vSphere HA host status"

"vSphere HA agent for this host has an error : vSphere HA agent cannot be installed or configure"

"Cannot install the vCenter server agent service. "Unknown installer error"

https://vmkfix.blogspot.com/2023/11/vmware-vsphere-ha-host-status.html