Upgrading vCenter from SDDC Manager fails with "vCenter upgrade spec creation failed due to exception : com.vmware.evo.sddc.lcm.model.error.LcmException/ Please contact GSS for further assistance."

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager
• VMware vCenter Server 7.0
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

vCenter upgrade via SDDC fails with the following error

Description             Upgrade - VCENTER <FQDN>
Progress Messages       vCenter upgrade failed at the VCENTER_UPGRADE_PRECHECK stage.
                        vCenter upgrade spec creation failed due to exception : com.vmware.evo.sddc.lcm.model.error.LcmException
Error

Message:               vCenter upgrade failed at the VCENTER_UPGRADE_PRECHECK stage. 
                       vCenter upgrade spec creation failed due to exception : com.vmware.evo.sddc.lcm.model.error.LcmException
Remediation Message:   Please contact GSS for further assistance.

Environment

SDDC Manager 5.0 or later. 
vCenter Server 8.0 or later.
Note : For remaining vCenter Server virtual machines, this includes vCenter Server versions prior to vCenter Server 8.0

Cause

When performing a Reduced Downtime Upgrade (RDU) on a vCenter Server, the upgrade fails if the inventory contains older vCenter Server virtual machines.

You will see following messages in lcm-debug.log in SDDC Manager.

yyyy-mm-ddT00:00:00.000+0000 DEBUG [vcf_lcm,0000000000000000,0000,upgradeId=abcdefg-fhijklmn-opqrstu-12345-12345678,resourceType=VCENTER,resourceId=abcdefg-fhijklmn-opqrstu-12345-12345678,bundleElementId=abcdefg-fhijklmn-opqrstu-12345-12345678] [c.v.e.s.l.c.v.vsphere.VsphereUtils,Upgrade-2] for vm search, searching for host: <FQDN for vcenter>
yyyy-mm-ddT00:00:00.000+0000 DEBUG [vcf_lcm,0000000000000000,0000,upgradeId=abcdefg-fhijklmn-opqrstu-12345-12345678,resourceType=VCENTER,resourceId=abcdefg-fhijklmn-opqrstu-12345-12345678,bundleElementId=abcdefg-fhijklmn-opqrstu-12345-12345678] [c.v.e.s.l.c.v.vsphere.VsphereUtils,Upgrade-2] Exception when trying to get dns server for vm <FQDN for vcenter>: {}
java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot load from object array because the return value of "com.vmware.vim.binding.vim.vm.GuestInfo.getIpStack()" is null


yyyy-mm-ddT10:46:23.829+0000 DEBUG [vcf_lcm,0000000000000000,0000,upgradeId=484df489-a566-4fc1-9490-ed2d06d8f725,resourceType=VCENTER,resourceId=e25959a4-45db-413e-8f70-0f6d547bf9f8,bundleElementId=3eab1127-07de-4acc-a2fa-df3163f8be1a] [c.v.e.s.l.c.v.vsphere.VsphereUtils,Upgrade-1] Exception when trying to get dns server for vm <VC-FQDN>: {}

you can also re-try task and LIVE trace lcm-debug.log

# date && grep -i "Exception when trying to get dns server for vm" lcm-debug.log

Resolution

SDDC 5.2.1 gives you an OPTIONS, i.e. which patch type you want to use
A. You can remove VM and opt for RDU 
- check your inventory for the presence of older versions of vCenter virtual machines.
- if a vCenter virtual machine is present, make sure it is not in use and delete it/ works with remove from Inventory as well 
or
B. you can Use Traditional/ REGULAR Update [and not remove the old VM]

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vcf/vcf-5-2-and-earlier/5-2/vcf-release-notes/vmware-cloud-foundation-521-release-notes.html  

The VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.2.1 release includes the following:
Reduced Downtime Upgrade (RDU) support for vCenter: VCF users can now leverage vCenter Reduced Downtime Upgrade (RDU) to execute a vCenter upgrade. vCenter RDU is a migration-based approach to upgrading vCenter and reduces the vCenter downtime to less than 5 minutes. 



C. retry the Upgrade from SDDC