vCenter 6.5U1 has introduced a major regression when deploying plugins - the VMWare-controlled list views are broken. Selecting any list view for a custom object gives a blank page / permanent "busy" animation, and the status bar shows a warning icon with the error "Cannot read property 'relationId' of undefined".
This is not an issue with our plugin - deploying the original "chassis-b" sample from the 6.5U1 SDK to a 6.5U1 vCenter Server or VCSA shows exactly the same problem - I've attached a screenshot of the error and the built plugin package for reference.
This is a showstopper issue for us as it gives an extremely bad initial customer experience.
Logging out and back in continues to show the same failure. The only way to fix the issue is to restart the "vsphere-ui" service, or reboot the entire vCenter Server / VCSA. After a reboot, the list views work correctly until/unless the plugin is updated.
This is not an intermittent issue - we've repro'd it multiple times on at least 5 different clean installs of the 6.5U1 VCSA (using the official "VMware-VCSA-all-6.5.0-5973321.iso" image), as well as a Windows vCenter Server upgraded from 6.5.0d. On one occasion, we actually saw *all* list views broken with this error - for the VMWare-internal objects as well as our own - but that doesn't seem to be the typical behaviour.
The problem did *not* occur on previous builds, and we have proven that this is a regression between 6.5.0e and 6.5U1 - performing exactly the same actions using a clean installed VCSA of 6.5.0e works as expected.
This only seems to happen when using the proper deployment method (registering the plugin via ExtensionManager). Using the "pickup" method doesn't seem to show the same problem. This also only affects the HTML client - the Flex client works as expected.
Is this is a known issue? Is there any workaround we can offer to improve the customer experience, or a plan to issue an update to address it in the near future?
The repro steps were as follows:
1) Install VCSA 6.5U1 (using the "VMware-VCSA-all-6.5.0-5973321.iso" image).
2) After completing setup of the VCSA, log in, and create a Datacenter.
3) Go to the "Global Inventory Lists" and check that the lists appear to be working correctly.
4) Register the plugin using the prebuilt registration tool in the 6.5U1 SDK with the following command line:
extension-registration -action registerPlugin -c VMware -k com.vmware.samples.chassisB.html -n "ChassisB Client" -s "SDK sample adding chassis objects and relations (advanced version)" -v "6.5.0.10000" -url https://myvcenter/sdk -u administrator@vsphere.local -p password -show -pu https://myserver/chassisB-sample.zip -st 6F:6D:37:9E:B9:5E:61:6B:A9:4E:8E:C2:7B:5B:5A:46:6F:6F:A4:E4
5) Wait 5 minutes; no "Plugins have been installed or updated" banner appears, and no plugins appear on the right side of the "Home" page.
6) Log out and back in. The plugin is listed on the right side of the "Home" page, but no banner appears, and the "Chassis B" objects are not shown in the "Global Inventory Lists". Check that the list views are still working.
7) Log out and back in. This time, note that the "Chassis B" objects appear on the "Global Inventory Lists".
😎 Select one of the "Chassis B" object categories. The "busy" bar remains shown, and the "warning" symbol appears on the status bar. Clicking the warning shows "Cannot read property of 'undefined'".
When performing the same steps on 6.5.0e, during step 6, the plugin is immediately available, and the list views for the custom objects work correctly.
