Service-control failed, Failed to start services in profile ALL. RC=1, stderr=Failed to start certificateauthority, sps, vpxd, hvc, topologysvc, sca, certificatemanagement, vpxd-svcs, sts services

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vCenter Server 7.0
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• VMWARE-STSD fails to start.
• Other dependent services not starting.
• When starting all services from the command line, the process ends with:

         Successfully started service vmware-vmon

     Service-control failed, Failed to start services in profile ALL. RC=1, stderr=Failed to start certificateauthority, sps, vpxd, hvc, topologysvc, sca, certificatemanagement, vpxd-svcs, sts services

• In /var/log/vmware/sso/vmware-identity-sts.log isn't being written to at the time of the startup attempt
• In /var/log/vmware/sso/sts-prestart.log , also has entries similar to:

         updating TLS info in /usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf/server.xml
         ..
     WARNING FAILED to run tls script, hard coded tls settings will be used

• /usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf/server.xml having no configuration

         ls -l /usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf/server.xml
         -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Apr  1 14:27 /usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf/server.xml

Environment

• VMware vCenter Server 7.0
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Cause

• VMWARE-STSD service not starting due to empty /usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf/server.xml file

Resolution

1. From another installed and working vCenter, running the same version, copy the /usr/lib/vmware-sso/vmware-sts/conf/server.xml file from the working vCenter and replace the empty file with the new one.  
   1. Use a scp client like winscp to download the good file and upload it to the non functioning vCenter.
2. Then stop and start all the vCenter services from vCenter ssh :
   1. Run the following command :  service-control --stop --all && service-control --start --all
   2. Or, reboot the vCenter appliance VM.