"Pre-upgrade check failed due the following problem: This operation is not allowed in the current state as operation 'None' is already in progress", vCenter 8.x upgrade fails at Stage 2

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Upgrading vCenter Server from 7.x to 8.x fails with the error message:
  
  Pre-upgrade check failed due the following problem: This operation is not allowed in the current state as operation 'None' is already in progress

Pre-upgrade check failed due the following Error: You cannot currently upgrade the source vCenter Server Appliance because the Deferred History Import feature is still running.
  
  
• OR
       
  
  
• Applmgmt logs on the 8.x appliance shows below errors :
  
  /var/log/vmware/applmgmt/applmgmt.log

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS UTC [pid]INFO:vcenter.fileutil:read_json_file: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: "/etc/vmware/deploy/operation.json'
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS UTC [pid]ERROR:vcenter.deployment_impl: This operation is not allowed in the current state as operation 'None' is already in progress.

Environment

• vCenter Server 7.x
• vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

This was caused due to stale Deferred upgrade import task on the source 7.x vCenter Server which was in pending state for very long time. This task was created when the upgrade of source vCenter server was performed from an earlier version such as 6.x to 7.x.

Resolution

• Take snapshot of the source 7.x vCenter Server.
• Reset the stale deferred import task using below command.
  
  /bin/import-history reset
  
  
• Move the file /usr/lib/vmware/cis_upgrade_runner/deferred-import-state.json to /var/tmp/ if available
  
  mv /usr/lib/vmware/cis_upgrade_runner/deferred-import-state.json /var/tmp/
  
  
• Retry the upgrade