Patching vCenter appliance from 7U3d to 7U3m is failing, while starting vpxd-svcs service

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vCenter Server 7.0

Issue/Introduction

• Error when attempting to start vpxd-svcs: "Could not resolve placeholder 'dataservice.access.logging.maxDays".
• Patching vCenter appliance from 7U3d to 7U3m, vpxd-svcs service is not starting, and vpx-svcs logs have below error:

/var/log/vmware/vpxd-svcs/vpxd-svcs.log:

[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] [main [] INFO  com.vmware.vim.dataservices.VpxdSvcsMain  opId=] Starting service via vmon
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] [main [] WARN  org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext  opId=] Exception encountered during context initialization - cancelling refresh attempt: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: Invalid bean definition with name 'isAccessLogCreated' defined in class path resource [server-config.xml]: Could not resolve placeholder 'dataservice.access.logging.maxDays' in value "${dataservice.access.logging.maxDays}"; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Could not resolve placeholder 'dataservice.access.logging.maxDays' in value "${dataservice.access.logging.maxDays}"
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS] [main [] ERROR com.vmware.vim.dataservices.VpxdSvcsMain  opId=] start: Tagging and Authz services failed to start
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: Invalid bean definition with name 'isAccessLogCreated' defined in class path resource [server-config.xml]: Could not resolve placeholder 'dataservice.access.logging.maxDays' in value "${dataservice.access.logging.maxDays}"; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Could not resolve placeholder 'dataservice.access.logging.maxDays' in value "${dataservice.access.logging.maxDays}"

• This issue is observed even when vCenter is patched from 7.0U3q to 7.0U3r.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 7.0.3

Cause

• Issue is due to a file that was not updated during the patching of vCenter server: /var/lib/vmware/vpxd-svcs/config/dataservice.properties.
• /var/lib/vmware/vpxd-svcs/config/dataservice.properties file would show below:

• Instead of expected (below highlighted lines will be missing in the dataservice.properties file):

"vpxdsvcs.version=12

> dataservice.access.logging.maxDays=0

> dataservice.access.logging.checkExists=true

> dataservice.access.logging.maxSize=1048576

> dataservice.access.logging.frequencySeconds=600"

Resolution

1.Take a backup of the file :

cp /var/lib/vmware/vpxd-svcs/config/dataservice.properties /root/

• Then, amend the file as follows:
  vi /var/lib/vmware/vpxd-svcs/config/dataservice.properties

• Insert the lines below, after 'vpxdsvcs.version' line:

--

dataservice.access.logging.maxDays=0

dataservice.access.logging.checkExists=true

dataservice.access.logging.maxSize=1048576

dataservice.access.logging.frequencySeconds=600

--

2.Start vpxd-svcs.

Additional Information

Note: Make sure you have a backup of the file before performing any modification: /var/lib/vmware/vpxd-svcs/config/dataservice.properties.