Error message: Post "http://localhost:1080/sdk": context deadline exceeded | Started K8s Supervisor Update and the Following Errors Appeared in vCenter: A general system error occurred.

Products

• VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service

Issue/Introduction

• Started K8s Supervisor Update and the Following Errors Appeared in vCenter.
• A vSphere Supervisor upgrade fails to progress. The upgrade pre-checks in vCenter show most items as verified, but the Control Plane VMs health check fails with a system error:
• A general system error occurred. Error message: Post "http://localhost:1080/sdk": context deadline exceeded.
• No upgrade logs are generated in /var/log/vmware/upgrade-ctl-compupgrade.log, and the command /usr/lib/vmware-wcp/upgrade/upgrade-ctl.py get-status shows all components as “Installed” or “Skipped” rather than “Upgraded.” The cluster status appears as ERROR, and components remain stuck in WaitingForComponentConfigured.

Cause

The Supervisor storage policy cannot match a compatible datastore. The policy expects a specific datastore tag (for example, tanzu-storage-z), but the required tag is missing or has been replaced with other tags (for example, tanzu-storage-x, tanzu-storage-y). Without a compatible datastore, the upgrade controller is unable to begin the upgrade process.

Resolution

To resolve the issue, restore datastore compatibility with the Supervisor storage policy:

Option 1 - Re-tag datastores to match existing policy

1. Identify the datastore(s) intended for Supervisor workloads.
2. Apply the expected tag (e.g.,tanzu-storage-z) to those datastores.
3. Verify policy compliance in vCenter (Storage Policies > [Supervisor policy] > Compliance).
4. Re-run upgrade pre-checks and retry the Supervisor upgrade.

Option 2 - Update the storage policy to match current tags

1. Edit or create a storage policy that uses the datastore tags currently applied (e.g., tanzu-storage-x, tanzu-storage-y).
2. Attach the updated policy to the Supervisor configuration.
3. Confirm that compatible datastores appear under policy compliance.
4. Re-run upgrade pre-checks and retry the Supervisor upgrade.

Validation

• /var/log/vmware/upgrade-ctl-compupgrade.log begins logging upgrade progress.
• /usr/lib/vmware-wcp/upgrade/upgrade-ctl.py get-status shows components progressing to “Upgraded.”
• dcli namespacemanagement software clusters get reports the Supervisor state as Healthy and the current version updated to the desired version.