"Error returned by expat parser: not well-formed" in vpxa.log when trying to add an ESXi host to vCenter

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• Unable to add ESXi host to vCenter
• vpxa is crashing with no coredump and shows error "Error returned by expat parser: not well-formed"

/var/run/log/vpxa.log on ESXi host shows:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.###Z error vpxa[6966924] [Originator@6876 sub=vmomi.soapStub[2] opID=m4kagcwv-79584-auto-1per-h5:70007819-da-01-01-82] Error deserializating SOAP response body; <<io_obj p:0x00000080483a3
868, h:20, <TCP '127.0.0.1 : 16868'>, <TCP '127.0.0.1 : 8307'>>, /sdk>, method: waitForUpdates, e:
--> Error returned by expat parser: not well-formed (invalid token)
-->
--> while parsing serialized value of type string
--> error parsing Any with xsiType string
--> at line 7, column 110341
-->
--> while parsing property "value" of static type anyType
-->
--> while parsing serialized DataObject of type vim.option.OptionValue
--> at line 7, column 110278
-->

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.###Z error vpxa[6966924] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxaInvtHostCnx opID=WFU-1c06dac8] Can't connect to hostd. Shutting down...
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.###Z info vpxa[6966924] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=WFU-1c06dac8] [Vpxa] Shutting down now

Cause

vpxa is crashing as it contains an invalid character that is not xml valid, which triggers the above error.

Resolution

1. Review the file /etc/issue for any invalid characters and remove them.

1. 1. Edit the /etc/issue using vi editor
   2. Either remove the entire content or remove the invalid characters in the file
   3. Save the file using :wq!

     2. Add the ESXi host to vCenter server.