NSX Management service failed to start after NSX Manager upgrade from 6.2.x to 6.3.x while upgrading NSX Database DynamicCriteria

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

This KB is to provide resolution for NSX Manager upgrades that fail as a results of null DynamicCriteria domain objects.

Symptoms:
The NSX Management service failed to start after an NSX Manager upgrade from version 6.2.x to 6.3.x, due to "Issue while upgrading DynamicCriteria".

In the NSX Manager's vsm.log file, you may see upgrade failure related error similar to: 

WARN localhost-startStop-1 AbstractApplicationContext:486 - Exception encountered during context initialization - cancelling refresh attempt org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'dynamicCriteriaUpgradeValidator': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is com.vmware.vshield.vsm.dynamicmembership.exceptions.DynamicCriteriaUpgradeFailedException: core-services:359:System upgrade failed. Issue while upgrading DynamicCriteria.

Cause

This issue occurs when NSX Manager database DynamicCriteria domain objects are null.

The following workflow that can lead to null value for criteria.

1. Create SecurityGroup SG1.
2. Create SecurityGroup "SG2" with dynamic criteria "Entity" belongs to "SG1".
3. Delete SecurityGroup "SG1".
4. The value for this dynamic criteria is set to null.

 

Resolution

This is a known issue when upgrading from VMware NSX for vSphere 6.2.x to 6.3.x or 6.4.0. 
It is fixed in VMware NSX for vSphere 6.3.7 and 6.4.1.

Workaround:
​To work around this issue: 

VMware recommends you to open a Support Request with VMware Support and note this Knowledge Base article ID (54822) in the problem description.