Cannot login to vCenter with Domain user account "Invalid Credentials"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

All the AD user accounts work except one or a few user accounts

Environment

vSphere 7.x

vSphere 8.x

Cause

AD user accounts are set to Expiry in the Active Directory Users and Computers

/var/log/vmware/sso/websso.log

YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.683Z INFO websso[89:tomcat-http--43] [CorId=d000000e-2000-4000-9000-b00000000000] [auditlogger] \"user\":\"Domain\\\\user_name\",\"client\":\"192.x.x.x\",\"timestamp\":\"09/17/2025 13:46:ss.GMT\",\"description\":\"User Domain\\\\[email protected] failed to log in with response code 401\",\"eventSeverity\":\"INFO\",\"type\":\"com.vmware.sso.LoginFailure\"}
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.683Z ERROR websso[89:tomcat-http--43] [CorId=d000000e-2000-4000-9000-b00000000000] com.vmware.identity.samlservice.AuthnRequestState] Caught Exception from authenticate com.vmware.identity.samlservice.SamlServiceException
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.683Z INFO websso[89:tomcat-http--43] [CorId=d000000e-2000-4000-9000-b00000000000] com.vmware.identity.samlservice.impl.SAMLAuthnResponseSender] Responded with ERROR 401 message Invalid credentials


YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.755Z ERROR websso[52:tomcat-http--6] [CorId=d000000e-2000-4000-9000-b00000000000] [com.vmware.identity.idm.server.IdentityManager] Failed to authenticate principal [Domain\\user_name]for tenant [Domain.local]
javax.security.auth.login.LoginException: Login failed

Resolution

Set the User account "Never" to expire in AD