VCHA deployment fails with error "vCenter HA has an invalid configuration. Remove vCenter HA to destroy the current cluster configuration and set up vCenter HA again"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• Unable to configure VCHA on vCenter post performing a clean up [Removing the eth1 adapter from the /etc/systemd/network and stale snapshots].
  
  
• During the deployment of the Passive or Witness nodes, the VCHA fails with the below error "vCenter HA has an invalid configuration. Remove vCenter HA to destroy the current cluster configuration and set up vCenter HA again"
  
  
  
• A Full Clone of powered on VM is observed in the vpxd logs which would be similar to the following log trace:
  
  /var/log/vmware/vpxd/vpxd.log:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS info vpxd[06611] [Originator@6876 sub=VmProv opID=<OP_ID>] Local-VC Host Datastore Full Clone of poweredOn VM 'VMware vCenter Server 8' (vm-##, ds:///vmfs/volumes/<Datastore_ID>/VMware vCenter Server 8-Passive/VMware vCenter Server 8-Passive.vmx) to new name VMware vCenter Server 8-Witness on host-## (IP_Address_Of_vCenter_Active_Node) in pool resgroup-## with ds ds:///vmfs/volumes/<Datastore_ID>/ to host-## (IP_Address of passive/witness node) in pool resgroup-## with ds ds:///vmfs/volumes/<Datastore_ID>/
  
  
• Few minutes post the Full Clone power on we observe the vpxd service was restarted which causes the clone operation of the node fail as per 8.0 U2's design:
  
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS +05:30 - time the service was last started YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS +05:30, Section for VMware VirtualCenter, pid=2036516, version=8.0.2, build=22617221, option=Release

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

VMOMI component causes the vpxd to crash and hence halts the clone process of the VCHA nodes.

Resolution

This is a known issue and is fixed in vCenter Server Release 8.0 U3.