This issue occurs when vCenter Server is installed on a machine that is part of an Active Directory domain, but while the VirtualCenter Server service is being started, the domain relationship is not working. The domain relationship may not be working because the domain controller is down, because of a network connectivity issue, or because the domain relationship for the machine is not valid anymore.
If the machine on which vCenter Server is installed is part of an Active Directory domain, the relationship must be healthy.
To resolve this issue:
- Verify that the vCenter Server can resolve the FQDN of the Active Directory server using the nslookup command in a Windows command prompt.
- Ensure that the Active Directory server is running and accessible from the vCenter Server machine.
If you are aware of a specific issue with your Active Directory server / services, and those are being worked on by another organizational unit as a temporary workaround you can adjust the logon settings in the VMware VirtualCenter service properties not to use the Local system account and configure it to use another account for example, specify the username as Administrator and provide the appropriate password.
Start the VMware VirtualCenter service first, then start the VMware Management Webservices (you can leave the logon settings for the Management Webservices service as Local system account, as this is just a temporary workaround). Remember that any vCenter functions that normally rely on the Active Directory to work, will still fail, but you will be able to perform activities that are not dependent on the Active Directory such as vMotion.