"<JAVA_HOME>/lib/ext exists, extensions mechanism no longer supported; Use -classpath instead" error while trying to upgrade to Cloud Director 10.3.3

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• <JAVA_HOME>/lib/ext exists, extensions mechanism no longer supported; Use -classpath instead.
• Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
• Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.
• Java error encountered when upgrading to 10.3.3

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 10.x

Cause

This issue occurs when the Cell performing the upgrade has a path structure which includes directories related to a no longer supported extensions mechanism.

Resolution

This is not an issue with the Cloud Director application, but the underlying OS directory structure and in particular the version of the Java Development Kit (JDK) in use.

A fix to remove the leftover Java Runtime Environment(JRE) files during the upgrade without manual intervention is added to VMware Cloud Director 10.3.3.2 and VMware Cloud Director 10.4 available at Broadcom Downloads.

Workaround:
The issue will occur under two conditions

1. The ext/ directory is present in the /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/jre/lib path.
2. The java.ext.dirs system property is set.

To workaround the issue,remove/rename the ext/ directory:

SSH into the appliance and run one of the following commands:

mv /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/jre/lib/ext /tmp

(or)

rm /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/jre/lib/ext