Error: "Firstboot failed" on the console when upgrading Aria Operations

Products

• VMware Aria Operations 8.x

Issue/Introduction

• During an upgrade of Aria Operations, the VMs are rebooted. After the reboot, the console of the VM shows the below 'Firstboot failed' error and the GUI(both /ui and /admin) becomes inaccessible.
• The following error is displayed on the VMs console screen:
  
Firstboot failed
Please see the log files in the following directory
/var/log/firstboot/


• An error similar to the following is present in /var/log/firstboot/upgradeInfrastructure.log:

  2024-09-05T04:24:59 ERROR [8745] - root - run-firstboot-scripts - <module> - 263 - Upgrade first boot flow is a failure

• An error similar to the following is present in /storage/log/vcops/log/vcopsConfigureRoles.log (Where <NON-ASCII-CHARACTERS> contains non-ASCII char/s):

  2024-09-05T03:45:25 DEBUG [13213] - root - vcopsPlatformCommon - UpdateDictionaryValue - Update section: "generalSettings" key: "offlineReason" with value: ""<NON-ASCII-CHARACTERS>"" file: "/usr/lib/vmware-vcopssuite/utilities/sliceConfiguration/data/roleState.properties"

Environment

Aria Operations 8.x upgrading to 8.18.x

Cause

• Non-ASCII characters present in the Offline Reason given in the Admin UI when taking the cluster offline.
• Upgrades can fail if the browser language is not set to English.

Resolution

1. Change the browser to English before starting the upgrade.
2. If taking the cluster offline prior to upgrade, enter the Offline Reason in English

Additional Information

The following articles detail other possible reasons for the Firstboot Failed error.

• VMware Aria Operations node fails to boot up when upgrading from 8.18.5 to 8.18.6
• Aria Operations upgrade to 8.18.7 stuck on stage 8 in disconnected environments
• Japanese version: Aria Operations のアップグレードが失敗し、コンソールには「firstboot failed」が表示される。