vCLS VMs are not getting created automatically after upgrading vCenter

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

vCLS VMs are not being created under vCenter clusters and there are constant deployment failures under recent Tasks and Events

Enabling and disabling retreat mode on the cluster does not resolve the issue

EAM service log specifically shows a 526 Invalid Certificate Exception error:

2023-08-15T03:40:37.624Z |  INFO | cluster-agent-4 | DeployVmJob.java | 554 | Zero-config deployemnt attempt failed(EamIOException->EamAppException[Upload request failed. Response:HTTP/1.1 526 Invalid SSL Certificate [content-length: 29 71, content-type: text/plain, date: Tue, 15 Aug 2023 03:40:37 GMT, connection: close] [Content-Length: 2971,Chunked: false]]), vSAN=false . Trying next.
2023-08-15T03:40:37.624Z |  WARN | cluster-agent-4 | DeployVmJob.java | 341 | Zero-config failed after 5 attempts
2023-08-15T03:40:37.624Z |  WARN | cluster-agent-4 | OptionalVMFailureOperation.java | 90 | Disabling optional Agent VMs for ClusterVMAgency(ID:###############################) due to failed VM creation for ClusterAgent(ID: ###############################)
2023-08-15T03:40:37.632Z |  INFO | cluster-agent-4 | ClusterDeployVmStrategy.java | 419 | ClusterAgent(ID: ###############################) could not deploy and optional VM. Stopping workflow.
com.vmware.eam.job.DeployVmJob$DeployVmJobFailure: Can't provision VM for ClusterAgent(ID: ###############################) due to lack of suitable datastore.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x

Cause

The vCenter database needs to be updated with the ESXi certificate thumbprint

Resolution

Disconnect and reconnect each ESXi host to vCenter within the cluster. Afterwards the vCLS VMs will be provisioned successfully.