Email notification field is blank in the scheduled task created for Update Manager "Update Download" and "Check Notification"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
Email notification field is blank in the scheduled task created for vSphere Update Manager "Update Download" and "Check Notification" and the email will not get triggered on task completion.

• Configuration for the "Automatic Patch Download" task is created with email id "[email protected]".

 

• The Scheduled task gets created after saving, however in the Scheduled tasks the "Email Notification" field will be blank as shown below. As such, the above task will never trigger an email.

Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 6.0.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x

Cause

The issue occurs because the Scheduled task which gets created for "Update Download" and "Check Notification" doesn't update the email id in the "vpx_scheduledtask" table in VCDB.

Resolution

This will be fixed in future release

Workaround:

1. Take a snapshot of the vCenter node.
2. Stop VPXD and Content library service using below commands:
   • service-control --stop vpxd
   • service-control --stop vmware-content-library
3. Connect to VCDB using command
   • /opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/psql -U postgres -d VCDB
4. Run the below command to list the scheduled tasks created.
   • select scheduledtask_id, name, notification from vpx_scheduledtask;

 scheduledtask_id |                       name                                             |  notification
------------------+--------------------------------------------------+-----------------
              108 | VMware vSphere Update Manager Check Notification   | 
              106 | VMware vSphere Update Manager Update Download    | 
              107 | Host Scan                             | [email protected]
 (3 rows)

As you can see the "notification" field for "Check Notification" and "Update download" scheduled task is blank.

5. Select the scheduledtask_id without the notification and run command as shown below:

update vpx_scheduledtask set notification = 'email id' where scheduledtask_id = "id from above output";

Example:
update vpx_scheduledtask set notification = '[email protected]' where scheduledtask_id = 108;
update vpx_scheduledtask set notification = '[email protected]' where scheduledtask_id = 106;

• Above command will result in below changes.

Example:
VCDB=# select scheduledtask_id, name, notification from vpx_scheduledtask;
 scheduledtask_id |                       name                       |  notification
------------------+--------------------------------------------------+-----------------
              108 | VMware vSphere Update Manager Check Notification | [email protected]
              106 | VMware vSphere Update Manager Update Download    | [email protected]
               107 | Host Scan                                                                         | [email protected]
(3 rows)

6. Start vpxd and content library service.

service-control --start vpxd
service-control --start vmware-content-library

7. Relogin to HTML5-Client.  The task will get updated with the notification email and next time scheduled task gets executed the task will trigger the email.

Additional Information

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2147285

Impact/Risks:
No Impacts. 

Note: Please take a snapshot of "Windows vCenter" before implementing the solution.