vCenter (VCHA) is down after network maintenance

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• vCenter is inaccessible via the url as "the page is not found".
• vCenter is not pingable.
• Only access to the vCenter is via the console.
• Active (N1), Passive (N2) and Witness (N3) are all powered on

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 6.x

VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x

 

Cause

The vCenter HA failover did not succeed due to the Witness node becoming unavailable while the Passive node is trying to assume the role of the Active node.

Resolution

1. Log in to the Witness node through the Virtual Machine Console.
   1. Check that the Witness node recovered from the failure.
2. Log in to the Passive node through the Virtual Machine Console.
   
   1. Run the following command.
      vcha-reset-primary
   2. Power off the Passive node.
3. After 2 minutes, log in to the Active node through the Virtual Machine Console.
   1. Check the Active node is now the Active by running ifconfig
      Should see eth0 and eth1 (if it still has HA).

Additional Information

 

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/7-0/vsphere-availability/vcenter-server-high-availability/troubleshoot-your-vcenter-ha-environment/resolving-failover-failures.html