Accessing the VAMI (https://VCSA:5480) stuck on "Getting Started"/"Setup vCenter" page due to stale restoreReconciliation-history.json

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When opening the vCenter Server Appliance VAMI UI (https://vcenter-fdqn:5480) in a web browser, no login page is displayed.

• Instead you see a "Getting Started" page with a yellow banner saying "vCenter Server has been restored. However, additional steps must be completed before it is available for use. Click the link below to continue.", similar to the image below:

 

• When looking in /var/log/vmware/applmgmt/vami.log you find the following entries:

Cause

This issue can occur when there are stale reconciliation files present in /storage/applmgmt/backup_restore/ and /etc/vmware/, such as:

• /storage/applmgmt/backup_restore/restoreReconciliation-history.json
• /storage/applmgmt/backup_restore/backup-history.json
• /etc/vmware/backupMarker.txt
  
   

 

Resolution

1. Stop the application management service:

   # service-control --stop applmgmt

2. Move the stale reconciliation files out of the folder into another location, e.g. /tmp/:

   # mv /storage/applmgmt/backup_restore/restoreReconciliation-history.json /tmp
   # mv /storage/applmgmt/backup_restore/backup-history.json /tmp
   # mv /etc/vmware/backupMarker.txt /tmp
   

   

3. Restart the applmgmt service:

   #service-control --start applmgmt

   Note: In some situations, the VAMI UI might still be showing an error message, such as in the screenshot below. Should you experience this issue, please reboot the vCenter Server Appliance:

4. Verify that login to the VAMI UI is possible again.