vCenter service vmware-perfcharts failing to start

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

In the /var/log/vmware/perfcharts/vmware-perfcharts-runtime.log.stderr you see the following error:

04-Dec-2024 10:06:48.307 SEVERE [localhost-startStop-1] org.apache.tomcat.util.descriptor.web.WebXmlParser.parseWebXml Parse error in application web.xml file at [file:/usr/lib/vmware-perfcharts/tc-instance/webapps/statsreport/WEB-INF/web.xml]
        org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; systemId: file:/usr/lib/vmware-perfcharts/tc-instance/webapps/statsreport/WEB-INF/web.xml; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 1; Premature end of file.
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:204)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.fatalError(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:178)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:399)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:326)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLScanner.reportFatalError(XMLScanner.java:1466)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$PrologDriver.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:1013)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:601)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:504)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:841)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:770)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:141)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1213)
                at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:642)
                at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1496)
                at org.apache.tomcat.util.descriptor.web.WebXmlParser.parseWebXml(WebXmlParser.java:119)
                at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.webConfig(ContextConfig.java:1068)
                at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.configureStart(ContextConfig.java:780)
                at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.lifecycleEvent(ContextConfig.java:300)
                at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:114)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:4804)
                at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:171)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:710)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:687)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:660)
                at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDirectory(HostConfig.java:1177)
                at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployDirectory.run(HostConfig.java:1925)
                at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)
                at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
                at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149)
                at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624)
                at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:750)

Environment

vCenter 7.0U3

Cause

Checking the file with following command returns blank:

• cat /usr/lib/vmware-perfcharts/tc-instance/webapps/statsreport/WEB-INF/web.xml

Resolution

1. Copy and replace the file from a healthy vCenter of same version.
2. Reboot the vCenter