Error: "String value has invalid format, value: [VM Name]" when trying to modify VM network or compute details.

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• Save button for Virtual Machines (VM) will be grayed-out. It will not be possible to modify the general settings of the VMs Save button is grayed out.
• Trying to edit the network on a VM  fails with below error:
  
  Error: [ xxxxxxxa4-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-2xxxxxxxxccb ] validation error on field 'updateVm.arg0.name': String value has invalid format, value: [VM Name ]

• When we try to edit the compute details of the VM, we encounter errors similar to below:
  
  Error: [ 8fxxxx7e-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-c5xxxxxx40 ] validation error on field 'updateVAppVmWithStorageClass.arg0.name': String value has invalid format, value: [VM Name ]

Error: [ 75xxxx4c-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-edxxxxxx6c ] validation error on field 'updateVAppVmWithStorageClass.arg0.computerName': String value has invalid format, value: [VM_Name]

• From the /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/logs/vcloud-container-debug.log, the following entries are seen with respect to name of the VM:
  
  2024-06-07 20:18:15,031 | ERROR | pool-jetty-204972 | AbstractValidationMethodInterceptor | validation error at method VAppService.updateVAppVmWithStorageClass, parameter 2 (field VmSpec.updateVAppVmWithStorageClass.arg0.computerName): String value has invalid format, value: [VM_Name] | requestId=03xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx59,request=POST https://vcd_url/api/vApp/vm-75xxxx4c-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-edxxxxxx6c/action/reconfigureVm,requestTime=1707337094832,remoteAddress=ipaddress:54165,userAgent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 ...,accept=application/*+xml;version 39.0.0-alpha

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 10.x

Cause

This issue is encountered if VM name has leading or trailing whitespaces, which is not allowed.

And the computer name can contain only alphanumeric characters and hyphens. The computer name cannot consist only of digits, it cannot contain an underscore (_), and it cannot end with a hyphen (-).

This situation occurs if the VMs are imported from vCenter to vCD with unsupported string formats.

Resolution

The issue can be resolved using any of the below process:

• Edit the VM name and eliminate any leading or trailing space characters in the name field.
  
  Valid Entry: [VM Name]
  Invalid entry: [VM Name ]
  
  
• Do not use underscores in computer names.

Valid Entry: [VMName]
Eg: Testvm01

Invalid entry: [VM_Name]
Eg: Test_vm01

For more details on how to edit Virtual Machine Name or Computer Name in the VMware Cloud Director Tenant Portal you can follow the document: Edit Virtual Machine Properties in the VMware Cloud Director Tenant Portal

If the Edit option is greyed out even after making the above changes, we need to perform the DB modifications. So contact technical support and note this Knowledge Article ID (322128) in the problem description. For more information, see How to Submit a Support Request.

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:

The name of the VM is not matching with the entry in the DB, so when we try to edit the VM properties the errors regarding the string is encountered.