Many vCenter services are not started due to VCHA settings are still in config file

Products

• VMware vCenter Server 7.0
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• After rebooting the vCenter Server, most of the vCenter Server services do not start automatically.
• The vCenter Server may have previously been configured with VCHA (vCenter High Availability).
• The vmon.log contains the entry “Starting vMon with profile 'HACore’.” You can verify this by following these steps:

1) Run command 

# service-control --start --all

2)But only a few services are started:

# service-control --status
Running:
 lwsmd vmafdd vmcad vmdird vmware-statsmonitor vmware-vmon
Stopped:
 applmgmt lookupsvc observability observability-vapi pschealth vlcm vmcam vmonapi vmware-analytics vmware-certificateauthority vmware-certificatemanagement vmware-cis-license vmware-content-library vmware-eam vmware-envoy vmware-hvc vmware-imagebuilder vmware-infraprofile vmware-netdumper vmware-perfcharts vmware-pod vmware-postgres-archiver vmware-rbd-watchdog vmware-rhttpproxy vmware-sca vmware-sps vmware-stsd vmware-topologysvc vmware-trustmanagement vmware-updatemgr vmware-vapi-endpoint vmware-vcha vmware-vdtc vmware-vpostgres vmware-vpxd vmware-vpxd-svcs vmware-vsan-health vmware-vsm vsphere-ui vstats vtsdb wcp

3） Check  /var/log/vmware/vmon/vmon.log,  the profile is 'HACore', it should be 'ALL' for a standalone vCenter Server.

vmon.log:
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.###Z In(05) host-#### Starting vMon with profile 'HACore'

Environment

vCenter Server 7.0.x

vCenter Server 8.0.x

Cause

According to the log message in vmon.log, this was  a VCHA environment,  then VCHA was destroyed. 

But the  VCHA setting is still in the following config file  :

# cat /storage/vmware-vmon/defaultStartProfile
HACore

Resolution

Change the settings in file /storage/vmware-vmon/defaultStartProfile to ALL. Then start all the services on vCenter Server.

# echo -n ALL >  /storage/vmware-vmon/defaultStartProfile
# service-control --start