VMware vCenter server upgrade fails with error "Insufficient permission to access the file"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• Performing a VMware vCenter server upgrade from 7.0.x to 8.0.x, fails with an error message:

Task failed on server: Module Nvman power on failed.
Installer log files located at C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Temp\11\vcsaUiInstaller

• This error occurs when the progress bar reaches around 80%.
• We can see the following entries in the log files mentioned below:

installer.log:

[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: <PERFORMANCE>:OVA_DEPLOY:1965:seconds
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: output:POWERON
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: output:+ 0
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: output:+ 1
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: output:+ 19
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: output:+ 37
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: output:+ 64
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: output:
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: output:ERROR
+ <Errors>
+ <Error>
+ <Type>ovftool.vi.task</Type>
+ <LocalizedMsg>
+ Task failed on server: Module Nvman power on failed.
+ </LocalizedMsg>
+ <Arg>
+ Module Nvman power on failed.
+ </Arg>
+ </Error>
+ </Errors>
...
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: output:RESULT
+ ERROR
...
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: Xml output from ovftool: <data><ManifestValidate valid="true"/><CertIssuer>/C=US/ST=California/L=Palo Alto/O=VMware, Inc.</CertIssuer><CertSubject>/C=US/ST=California/L=Palo Alto/O=VMware, Inc.</CertSubject><X509Cert>-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----Data omitted-----END CERTIFICATE-----</X509Cert><Errors><Error><Type>ovftool.vi.task</Type><LocalizedMsg>Task failed on server: Module Nvman power on failed.</LocalizedMsg><Arg>Module Nvman power on failed.</Arg></Error></Errors></data>
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - error: Ovf Service:vmrefFlag: false
[YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS Z] - info: Cancelling timeout due to error from progress callback

• From the log we can see that the VM (newly deployed VCSA) cannot power on.

Environment

VMware vCenter 7.0.3
VMware vCenter 8.0.3

Cause

This issue occurs if there are issues with the underlying storage, which results in subsequent writes to the NVRAM file to fail.

The NVRAM file of a virtual machine stores the state of the virtual machine's BIOS settings. When you modify the BIOS settings, ESXi makes the changes persistent by storing them in the NVRAM file. If there are any issues with the underlying datastore on which the virtual machine's configuration files are stored, it results in failures while writing the new BIOS settings to the NVRAM file of the virtual machine.

Resolution

Please refer to the following article for the resolution to fix the reported issue and attempt VCSA upgrade again.

Powering on a virtual machine fails with the error: NVRAM write failure: