"500 internal server error" logging into a Linked Mode vSphere Client

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Login page for vCenter Server 7.0 with the vSphere Client fails with the error:

500 internal server error

• In the tomcat log file, you see:

Exception from /var/log/vmware/sso/tomcat/localhost.2020-04-08.log file:
2020-04-08T08:20:39.544Z SEVE org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].[localhost].[/].[appServlet] Servlet.service() for servlet [appServlet] in context with path [] threw exception [java.lang.ClassFormatError: Truncated class file] with root cause
java.lang.ClassFormatError: Truncated class file
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:763)
        at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:142)

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

Cause

The issue is caused by tomcat's handling of the Catalina/localhost folder.

Resolution

Currently, there is no resolution to this issue.

Workaround:

1. Connect to the vCenter Server with an SSH session and root credentials.
2. Stop the Secure Token Service with this command: service-control --stop vmware-stsd 
3. Navigate to /usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/work/Catalina/localhost  
4. Run this command to remove the folder causing the issue: rm -rf ROOT

Note: This folder is Catalina's cache folder and it is created during startup.

5. Start the Secure Token Service server with this command: service-control --start vmware-stsd