Troubleshooting failed VMware Tools upgrade in a virtual machine on an ESX/ESXi host

Products

VMware vCenter Server VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article highlights some of the common causes for a failed VMware Tools upgrade. The article has two sections, one for issues that apply to Windows guest operating systems and one for issues that apply to Linux guest operating systems.

Symptoms:

VMware Tools upgrade fails.
VMware Tools upgrade errors before completion.
One of these errors displays:
- Script execution failed with status of 1.
- stat '/etc/vmware-tools/config'
  
  Note: This error appears when upgrading VMware Tools from the 3.0 version to the 3.0.1 or later version using the rpm -Uhv command.
- An error occurred during the move data process: -623 File name is.
- Error 1714 The older version of VMware Tools cannot be removed.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware ESX Server 2.5.x
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware ESX Server 3.0.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.x

Resolution

Windows Guest Operating Systems

If you see this error when upgrading VMware Tools:

An error occurred during the move data process: -623 File name is.

Reboot your guest operating system and retry the upgrade.
You may see this error when trying to upgrade VMware Tools:

Error 1714 The older version of VMware Tools cannot be removed.

For more information, see Error 1714 The older version of VMware Tools cannot be removed (1003395).

Linux Guest Operating Systems

You may see this error when trying to upgrade VMware Tools:

Script execution failed with status of 1.

For more information, see Cannot upgrade vmware tools on Red Hat Linux Virtual Machines after migrating upgrading ESX host (1003552).
With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3U6 as the guest operating system, you may see this error when upgrading VMware Tools from the 3.0 version to the 3.0.1 or later version using the rpm -Uhv command:

stat '/etc/vmware-tools/config'.

For more information, see When Upgrading VMware Tools with the rpm -Uhv Command, You Might See an Error Message (1032429).

ESX/ESXi

You may see this error when trying to install or upgrade VMware Tools:

Unable to install VMware Tools. An error occurred while trying to access image file /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/linux.iso needed to install VMware Tools: No such file or directory.
If your product shipped with the VMware Tools package, reinstall VMware ESX, then try again to install the VMware Tools package in the virtual machine.

For more information, see Installing and upgrading VMware Tools fails with the error: An error occurred while trying to access image file /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/ (1037405).

Note: If you are experiencing problems upgrading VMware Tools and the solution is not provided in this article:

Gather the VMware Support Script Data. For more information, see Collecting Diagnostic Information in a VMware Virtual Infrastructure Environment (1003689).
File a support request with VMware Support and note this KB Article ID in the problem description. For more information, see How to Submit a Support Request.