"Unsupported enum value" error notification displays when selecting "VMware Tools" under the objects "Updates" tab

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
When selecting avirtual machine, Host, Cluster, Datacenter or a folder and choosing Updates -> VMware Tools, you might see a red error notification: Unsupported enum value

in the vsphere_client_virgo.log you see the error:

[2019-09-26T12:13:34.199+02:00] [ERROR] http-nio-5090-exec-6          com.vmware.vum.client.controllers.LoggingController               Unsupported enum value
[2019-09-26T12:13:34.199+02:00] [ERROR] http-nio-5090-exec-6          com.vmware.vum.client.controllers.LoggingController               java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Unsupported enum value
[...]

Environment

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.x

Cause

The issue can occur when at least one VM in the cluster has an empty value for "ToolVersionStatus".
This can happen when a VM is created without any Hard Disk.

To verify which and how many VMs are affected, we can run the following PowerCli command:

Get-VM | % { get-view $_.id } | select name, @{Name="ToolsVersion"; Expression={$_.config.tools.toolsversion}}, @{ Name="ToolStatus"; Expression={$_.Guest.ToolsStatus}}, @{ Name="ToolVersionStatus"; Expression={$_.Guest.ToolsVersionStatus}}

The affected virtual machines are the ones with empty value for "ToolVersionStatus".

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting vCenter 6.7 and is fixed in vSphere 6.7 P01.

Workaround:
To workaround the issue, temporarily remove the affected VMs from the inventory.

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
Update Manager cannot be used to update VMware Tools onvirtual machines.