NSX upgrade failed with a ‘VI SDK invoke exception:org.dom4j.DocumentException’ error

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When trying to manually upgrade NSX module of ESXi from NSX manager GUI, the task fails with an error message:

     Unexpected error while upgrading upgrade unit: Upgrade not attempted because dry-run of upgrade on host ###-###-###-###-### failed with message:

          VI SDK invoke exception:java.rmi.RemoteException: VI SDK invoke exception:org.dom4j.DocumentException.


 

• It is VCF environment where ESXi and NSX are managed by VCF. There is Updates precheck task ongoing in SDDC GUI

 

• ESXi /var/log/esxupdate.log has following file lock error
  YYYY-MM-DD esxupdate[#######]: LockFile: ERROR: Error locking file /var/run/bootbankimgdb.pid: [Errno 11] Resource temporarily unavailable, the file is currently locked by process with PID ####### 
YYYY-MM-DD esxupdate[#######]: LockFile: ERROR: Failed to lock LockFile /var/run/bootbankimgdb.pid ('/var/run/bootbankimgdb.pid', 'Error locking file /var/run/bootbankimgdb.pid: [Errno 11] Resource temporarily unavailable, the file is currently locked by process with PID #######') 

 

• Even after reboot ESXi, the problem still there

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x
VMware NSX-T Data Center 3.x
VMware NSX 4.x

Cause

The behavior at the ESXi installer is correct. There a lock to prevent inconsistencies arising out of multiple parallel updates on the host. Thus, only one operation is allowed to go ahead and complete.
Since there is still SDDC updates precheck task ongoing, then manaually trigger upgrade from NSX manager GUI failed.

Resolution

Cancel the updates precheck task in SDDC GUI and re-trigger the NSX upgrade from SDDC GUI, only trigger upgrade from SDDC but not NSX manager