"Installation of one or more RPMs failed" message when attempting to update or upgrade to vCenter Server 8.0U2

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• VAMI UI shows the messages Installation of one or more RPMs failed and You have reached the maximum number of retries to resume the patching. Please restore the vCenter using the backup. when patching or upgrading vCenter Server to 8.0U2.
  
  
• Presence of createrepo_c RPM in the vCenter server.
  
  
• The /var/log/vmware/applmgmt/update_microservice.log shows the following entries at the time of the failure:

YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS,254 - 42314 -     functions_target::                    runCommand:  96 -    DEBUG - Process completed. Return code [1], stdout [Preparing...                          ########################################
], stderr [     package createrepo_c-#.$$.#.#.ph3.x86_64 is already installed]
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS,255 - 42314 -   dbfunctions_target::                    executeDML:  56 -    DEBUG - Executing Query {UPDATE install_progress SET Subphase = ?,          end_time = DATETIME('now'), status = ?          WHERE Phase = ? } with parameters ('Installation of Photon3 RPM failed.', 'failed', 'Installing RPMs')
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS,260 - 42314 -    update_b2b_target::            executeInstallRpms:1920 -    ERROR - RPM installation failed.
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS,260 - 42314 -    update_b2b_target::                   installRpms:2358 -    ERROR - Installation of one or more RPMs failed.
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS,260 - 42314 -    update_b2b_target::                   installRpms:2359 -    ERROR - Installation of Photon3 RPM failed.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.2

Cause

The issue appears to have occurred due to the presence of higher-version RPMs, including the createrepo_c package, likely left behind from a previously failed vCenter Server update.

The createrepo_c rpm gets installed as part of the pre-install step of 8.0U2 so it should not be present prior to attempting to update to 8.0U2.

Resolution

The issue has been resolved in vCenter Server version 8.0 Update 2b.

In the event of any further failures, please collect the relevant logs and revert the vCenter Server to a known good backup or snapshot.

Additional Information

Before re-attempting the update, check for the presence of the createrepo_c RPM. You can use the following command to verify:

rpm -qa | grep -i createrepo