vCenter 5 upgrade fails with "The wizard was interrupted"

[nilic]

Hi all,

I'm trying to upgrade a vCenter 4.1u1 installation to vCenter 5 but keep running into the following error:

I've taken a look at these log files but wasn't able to find the specific reason for this.It seems that the setup gives up when the Tomcat service fails to start, and the reason for Tomcat not starting is vCenter service not being able to start. When I try to start the vCenter service manually from the Services MMC, I get "Error 1067: The process terminated unexpectedly".

I've tried uninstalling vCenter completely and going for a clean install while using the same upgraded database and it still fails. Clean installs with vCenter's bundled SQL Server 2008 R2 Express or an empty DB on my database server go through without a problem, but this is not of much use to me, as I would like to keep my old vCenter DB.

vCenter runs on Windows 2008 R2 SP1 machine, while the database is running on MS SQL Server 2008 SP1 and I'm connecting to the DB as the sa SQL Server user.

I have attached the last few lines from the aforementioned log files (with **XXX** replacing some information not relevant for troubleshooting).

Thanks for your help

[RAMESA]

Can you attach the vpxd log from "%allusersprofile%\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs" looks like service did not come up because of which Inventory service has failed to install? If "VMware vCenter Server" is in stopped state; please try to start it. If it starts fine you can once again launch the installer and follow wizard; now it will take care of installation of "Inventory Service"

Let me know if this solves your problem.

Also please attach all the .log file from %temp% folder.

Regards,

Ramesh

[nilic]

Hi,

after the unsuccessful installation, vCenter Server service cannot be started - I get "Error 1067: The process terminated unexpectedly" when trying to start it as mentioned before.

Here is the vpxd.log that I've kept from one of the unsuccessful service start attempts. Unfortunately, I don't have any more logs since I have restored the DB from a backup and the VM from a snapshot since this is a production machine.

Thanks

Nebojsa

[RAMESA]

Thanks for the vpxd log. It would be helpful if we can get all the logs along with vpxd dump files. check if we can get the vc-support.

Regards,

Ramesh

[nilic]

This is all that I had from the logs. I can only try recreating the error by retrying to upgrade vCenter if nothing can be concluded from the provided logs.

[Fonetik20111014]

I am having the same symptoms and the same error.  Any updates on this?

[RAMESA]

Can you upload all the logs from %temp% especially VCDatabaseUpgrade.log and vpxd logs along with dumps from location i provided in earlier comment?

[mattkowalski691]

I'm having a similar problem although it is in a virtual lab setup and a new install, not an upgrade.

I have a 2011 iMac i7 w/ 16gb ram and am running Fusion v4.  I have a virtual windows 2k8 r2 server running active directory, etc.  I have another virtual windows 2k8 r2 server joined to the domain and this is where I am trying to install vCenter 5.  Everytime I get to the point where it says something like "installing Tomcat" the install stops and rolls back.  Message box directs you to look at the log files.  I can't tell what the problem is based on the log files.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'd be happy to attach log files - let me know which ones.

Thank you,

Matt

[mattkowalski691]

Nevermind, figured out my problem.  Was using a MSDN debug version of Server 2008 which doesn't allow sql express to install properly.  Only found this out to be the problem when I tried to install full version of SQL Server and it errored out.

[mburgard]

Same issue...  I upgraded 2 vcenters in my environment successfully.  3rd one failed with same errors as the original files.  I have a support case open with VMware on this and spent a few hours on the phone going nowhere.  We were upgrading from 4.1u1 in several sites.  I went as far as setting up a clean server, restoring the database back, and trying to run the upgrade on a new server.  Support is drilling in on the tomcat service... Will update when we get somewhere on this.

[nebojsai]

Thanks to VMware support, here's the solution:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2007231

Deleting the "Network uplink redundancy degraded" alarm from vCenter before upgrading worked for me.

[hafeezpashamoha]

Followed instructions from below KB and worked for me tooo.. I think this need highlighted to vmware audience who is planning vcenter upgrade to ver 5.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2007231

Thanks VMware.

[spf62]

We are having the exact same issue. When I try to go to teh KB article, I get this:

Jared Schuler (jschuler) guest kss true false false KB Article> > Knova Authoring Jan 6, 2012 2012-1-6

KB Article 2 2007231 Public false The VirtualCenter Server service fails to start with alarm errors after upgrading to vCenter Server 5.0 ) false false false false false true true false false false false true true false false false MSIE true /selfservice var ratingObj = new Object(); ratingObj.ratingCount = "5"; ratingObj.yourRating = "${yourRating}"; ratingObj.ratingMsg = "5 Ratings"; ratingObj.ratingClass = "5"; ratingObj.ratingAuthors = "Jared Schuler (jschuler)"; ratingObj.rateSubmitAction = "/selfservice/common/feedback.jsp"; ratingObj.rateObjId = "2"; ratingObj.threadId = "2007231"; ratingObj.ratingUser = "guest"; ratingObj.rateObjType = "KC"; ratingObj.caseId = ""; ]]>

Can someone please help with this??

thanks in advance

[sirluke99]

During the install it would not accept my domain password, finally got it to go using the local admin account. I did as above after the install and it worked. But during my VCP5 class I learned that the install does NOT like special characters in the password field. It will work after changing from local admin to a domain admin in the services, but to get it to work during the install you must change the domain password to have no special characters or use the local account to install and change it in services after completedRead full story: http://www.virtualization.net/3930-vmware-vcenter-5-installation-fails-error-code-1603/#ixzz24hYPiSQ...

[JPANTSJOHA]

Im having the same issue.

But all i got from the logs was:

CustomAction VM_Start Tomcat Immediate returned actual error code 1603.

I tried deleting all from %TEMP%, and created a whole dedicated vmware account on this windows 2012 server 64bit (btw), albeit the "all-in-one" installation crashed out here. Everything i have tried so far... didnt work.

Im stuck here. There is no further FYI information on the forums or knowledge board.

At this point, all and any tips are welcome...

Else its back to square one for me to have a go.

Thank you!!

[raog]

did you check the other log files mentioned in that screenshot: viminst.log, vim-sps-msi.log? If you run the installer again, do you still hit the same issue?

Regards

Girish