vCenter Server Appliance upgrade from 6.5 To 6.7 fail during "vpxd firstboot"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• vCenter Server Appliance upgrade from 6.5 To 6.7 fail during "vpxd firstboot".
• The /var/log/firstboot/vpxd_firstboot.py_9539_stderr.log records the following :

2019-09-12T19:56:38.341Z ERROR starting vpxd rc: 1, stdout: , stderr: Start service request failed. Error: Operation timed out
2019-09-12T19:56:38.341Z VirtualCenter firstboot failed
VPXD startup completed at 2019-09-12T19:54:48.722Z and took 731674 ms
VMon requesting a shutdown of the service due to timeout

Environment

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

Cause

This issue occurs when the "vpxd" service does not complete it's initialization within the default time of five minutes and the "vmon" process stops the process.

Resolution

To resolve this issue:

1. Re-initiate the upgrade up till Stage 1.
2. After Stage 1 completes, establish an SSH session to the target vCenter Appliance.
3. Navigate to the directory : /etc/vmware/vmware-vmon/svcCfgfiles
4. In the vpxd.json file, modify the StartTimeout value from 300 seconds to 3000 seconds.
5. Save the file and resume the upgrade from Stage 2.

Additional Information

The above resolution is also applicable for other services where in the service fails to start due to a Operation Time Out.