"No Upgrade Available" message when attempting to upgrade VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle via CDROM.

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

 

• Attempting to upgrade Aria Suite lifecycle 8.14 and later versions via CDROM results in a "No Upgrade Available" message.
• When navigating to Settings -> Product Support Pack -> Check Support Packs Online, the PSPack either isn't listed for application or the most current PSPacks are already available in the Aria Suite Lifecycle. 
• A previous upgrade attempt has been made, and no snapshot is available to revert to.
• The appliance update log /var/log/vmware/cap_am/appliance_update_list_ms.log has an INSTALL_FAILED message similar to:
  

  
  Already read 626 bytes of 626
Status file read : {INSTALL_FAILED <Date&Timestamp> <ID> cap-non-lvm-update 44% Starting to execute post install extension script Failed}
Writing flow control to socket {"ContentLength":197}
Writing 197 bytes to socket

  (or)

  Status file read : {INSTALL_FAILED <Date&Timestamp> <ID> cap-non-lvm-update 0% exit status 1 Failed}

  (or)

  {"state":"INSTALL_FAILED","version":"","latest_query_time":"<Date&Timestamp>","instance_id":"<ID>","current_workflow":"cap-non-lvm-update","progress":"0%","message":"exit status 1","status":"Failed"}

  (or)

  Already read 622 bytes of 622
Status file read : {INSTALL_FAILED <Date&Timestamp> <ID> cap-non-lvm-update 22% Removing stage path failed }
Writing flow control to socket {"ContentLength":197}
Writing 197 bytes to socket

• The installer log /var/log/vmware/capengine/cap-non-lvm-updateinstaller-<<timestamp>>.log has a failure when validating packages:
  
  error: Failed dependencies:
       eventlog is obsoleted by (installed) syslog-ng-3.37.1-4.ph3.x86_64
D: closed db index   /var/lib/rpm/Packages
  
  

Environment

VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle 8.x

Cause

The issue can occur when there is a previous failed upgrade attempt. The upgrade creates a json file to track the status of the upgrade. Without reverting to a snapshot taken prior to the failed upgrade attempt the json file can prevent future upgrades from proceeding.

Resolution

The issue is pending a resolution.

Workaround:

To workaround the issue:

1. Snapshot the Aria Suite lifecycle appliance.

2. SSH to the Aria Suite lifecycle appliance and login with the root user.

3. Remove the package syslog-ng:
yum remove syslog-ng

4. For upgrade and update, upgrade_status.json and update_status.json file gets created respectively. Follow either of the steps as per the upgrade/update attempted.
    
    4.1 If upgrade is attempted, delete upgrade_status.json using below command.   

rm /etc/vmware/cap/cap_am/upgrade_status.json

    4.2 If update is attempted, delete update_status.json using below command.

rm /etc/vmware/cap/cap_am/update_status.json

5. Retry the upgrade/update.

6. If the preceding steps do not resolve revert to snapshots taken step 1.

Additional Information

See After upgrading from 8.12 to 8.14, the Build and Version numbers are not updated if issue persists if LCM is not vCF aware.