Changing vCenter server short name to FQDN fails with error "Network update failed"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

While changing short name to fully qualified domain name in vCenter server , below error might be encountered : 

"Network update failed" 

"Failed to start STS Services"

Environment

vCenter Server 6.7.x
vCenter Server 7.x

Cause

This is a known issue in vCenter server PNID workflow

Resolution

1. On vCenter server UI , Navigate to Administration - Configuration - Identity source
2. Local OS identity source should be with Domain localos (Refer to Update of PNID via Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) returns Error: Failed to to start STS service)
3. Connect via SSH to the vCenter Server
4. Type in cd /usr/lib/applmgmt/networking/py/vmware/appliance/networking/pnid
5. Type cd __pycache__
   
6. Now type rm pnid_utils.cpython-37.pyc
7. Navigate to /usr/lib/applmgmt/networking/py/vmware/appliance/networking/pnid  
8. Edit file pnid_utils.py with the following sleep value after taking a backup. Increase the time.sleep value to 1000
   
   
9. Proceed with PNID change and tail -f pnid logs. : /var/log/vmware/applmgmt/pnid_change.log 
   
10. Monitor logs and when it has started making changes in the registry, Navigate to /var/vmware/applmgmt/temp_reg
11. Change vc1.example.com.example.com to vc1.example.com in temp_reg   (sed -i ‘s/vc1.example.com.example.com/vc1.example.com/g’)

Additional Information

Note : Need an offline snapshot of the vCenter before PNID change