When refreshing the STS Signing Certificate after deleting/retiring your PSC, you receive an errors: "Provider method implementation threw unexpected exception"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When executing "Refresh with vCenter certificate", the following error is returned:

Provider method implementation threw unexpected exception: https://<PSC-FQDN>:443/api/ invocation failed with "java.net.UnknownHostException: <PSC-FQDN>"

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

This occurs when the original source PSC has been deleted or retired.

Resolution

1. Ensure you have snapshots or backups of your vCenter environment.  Note: If you have vCenters in Enhanced Linked Mode you must snapshot all of them using the following best practices guide: https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleNumber=313886 
2. Initiate the Refresh with vCenter Certificate step.
3. Click on Force Refresh to force replacement of the signing certificate with a vCenter sourced certificate.