Cannot Register a New VASA Certificate: A problem was encountered while registering the provider

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When you go to register a new VASA provider you receive the error: 

This is a generic error message that means we cannot complete registering the VASA provider. If you receive this error then we need to check the validity of the VASA Certificate. Upon checking the vCenter sps logs you may see: 

INFO  opId=*****-***::com.vmware.vim.sms.client.VasaClientImpl - [setCookies] Added cookie VASAVERSION and VC_GUID for provider https://**********:
INFO  opId=*****_***:com.vmware.vim.storage.common.security.CommonActivationValidator - [getRolesFromRoleCacheObject] Validating session for user NWRDC\sharif for method QuerySmsTaskInfo having correlator ******
ERROR opId=******* com.vmware.vim.sms.provider.vasa.version.Version*Strategy - Error in queryVasaProviderInfocom.vmware.vim.vasa.InvalidCertificate: com.vmware.vim.vasa._*_*.InvalidCertificate: InvalidCertificate
   

If you receive that error then the certificate needs to be reissued or repaired by the VASA provider. If you do not see any invalid certificate messages then please see VASA Provider Registration Troubleshooting

Environment

VMware vSphere 7.0

VMware vSphere 8.0

Cause

If the VASA provider is running and it is not reachable by vCenter Server, the problem may be related to certificates. VASA and SPBM use certificate exchange, and the vCenter Server must accept the VASA provider certificates.

Certificate-related problems will be called in the SPBM Java process's wrapper log. You can check for the above error in the logs:

Windows vCenter Server: %ProgramData%\VMware\vCenterServer\logs\vmware-sps\wrapper.log 
VCSA: /var/log/vmware/vmware-sps/wrapper.log

And in the sps logs: 

/var/log/vmware/vmware-sps/sps.log

In some cases, the VASA provider certificate may have a 0 Byte size. To resolve this, the host-side (provider) VASA certificates are required.

Resolution

Reach out to your VASA provider to see why the certificate is invalid. 

Additional Information

For more information on troubleshooting the VASA registration, see our guide: VASA Provider Registration Troubleshooting