"Property vim.vm.Capability,featureRequirementSupported not found" while upgrading from VC 6.0 to 6.5/6.7

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• vCenter upgrade from 6.0 to 6.5/6.7 fails to start vpxd.
• You see this error: 
  
  Property vim.vm.Capability,featureRequirementSupported not found.
   
• In the firstbootInfrastructure.log file, you see entries similar to:
  
  2019-02-25T20:18:51.66Z INFO firstbootInfrastructure [Failed] /usr/lib/vmware-vpx/firstboot/vpxd_firstboot.py is complete

• In the vpxd_firstboot.py_xxxx_stderr.log file, you see entries similar to:
  
  2019-02-25T20:18:50.964Z  Invoked command: ['/usr/sbin/vpxd', '-L']
  2019-02-25T20:18:50.964Z  RC = -6
  Stdout =
  Stderr =
  2019-02-25T20:18:50.965Z  VirtualCenter firstboot failed

• In the vpxd.log file, you see entries similar to:
  
  2019-02-25T20:18:50.003Z error vpxd[18055] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxResultFilter opID=DbParallelLoad-bc5816b] [VpxResultFilter] Property vim.vm.Capability,featureRequirementSupported not found
  
  OR
  
  2019-03-05T02:47:10.174Z error vpxd[18429] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxResultFilter opID=DbParallelLoad-5c8022d1] [VpxResultFilter] Property vim.vm.Capability,multipleCoresPerSocketSupported not found
  
  Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x

Cause

This issue occurs if there are any virtual machines/templates in the Inventory from 5.0 or before version without specific vim.vm.Capability property. For example "featureRequirementSupported"  or "multipleCoresPerSocketSupported".

Resolution

To resolve this issue:

1. Connect to the vCenter Server Database:
   • For vPostgres database, see:
     • Interacting with the vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 embedded vPostgres Database
     • Connecting to the embedded vPostgres Database in a Windows installed vCenter Server 6.x
2. Run this SQL command to find the Virtual Machine/Template from 5.0 version:

SELECT ID, FILE_NAME, HOST_ID, CAPABILITY FROM VPX_VM WHERE CAPABILITY LIKE '%versionId="5.0"%';

Note: You may want to check for 4.1/4.0 version as well in the above SQL query if the vCenter Upgrade history include those versions.

For example:

SELECT ID, FILE_NAME, HOST_ID, CAPABILITY FROM VPX_VM WHERE CAPABILITY LIKE '%versionId="4.1"%';
SELECT ID, FILE_NAME, HOST_ID, CAPABILITY FROM VPX_VM WHERE CAPABILITY LIKE '%versionId="4.0"%';

3. Remove the Virtual machine/Template from inventory and proceed with the upgrade.
4. Removed VMs can be registered back post upgrade completion.