Upgrading VMware Cloud Director from 10.5.x to 10.6.x hangs and will not proceed further

Products

VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

Running the vamicli update --install latest command during Cloud Director Appliance upgrade shows output similar to the following. The dots will just keep going indefinitely and upgrade seems to hang.

vamicli update --install latest
Installing version -
10.6.1.11841 Build 24756346
.................................................................................................................................................................................

When we review the /opt/vmware/var/log/vami/upgradecli.log we can see it gets stuck at the following.

Finished installing version 10.6.1.11841
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/timers.target.wants/logrotate.timer → /usr/lib/systemd/system/logrotate.timer.
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/sysinit.target.wants/systemd-timesyncd.service → /usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-timesyncd.service.

/opt/vmware/var/log/appliance-sync.log will show the following indicating that the node cannot mount the nfs share.

2025-09-30 12:11:47 | ERROR: Unable to mount nfs share. Stopping appliance sync actions.
2025-09-30 12:12:52 | Executing vcd appliance sync scripts
2025-09-30 12:12:52 | NFS share is not currently mounted on transfer share.  Attempting to mount it.

We do not see any transfer share mounted when running the command df -h

root@vcd [ ~ ]# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs 4.0M 0 4.0M 0% /dev
tmpfs 5.9G 108K 5.9G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 2.4G 776K 2.4G 1% /run
tmpfs 4.0M 0 4.0M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda3 28G 11G 16G 40% /
tmpfs 5.9G 64K 5.9G 1% /tmp
/dev/sda2 365M 39M 307M 12% /boot
/dev/mapper/database_vg-vpostgres 79G 21G 54G 28% /var/vmware/vpostgres
tmpfs 1.2G 0 1.2G 0% /run/user/0

We should see the transfer share mounted something similar to this in the df -h command

NFS_ServerIP:/mnt/nfs1 17G 955M 16G 6% /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 10.6.x

Cause

The VCD appliance cannot mount the required NFS transfer share, preventing the upgrade from finalizing.

Resolution

Check the current NFS mount status on the cell by running the following command: df -h
Look for the transfer share mount point. You should see an entry similar to: NFS_ServerIP:/mnt/nfs1 17G 955M 16G 6% /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer
Verify that the NFS server is running and accessible from the VCD cell.
If the NFS server is down or unreachable, reboot the NFS server or the VCD cells as required to restore connectivity.
Once the NFS connectivity is restored, the upgrade process will automatically attempt to mount the share and proceed.

The /opt/vmware/var/log/vami/upgradecli.log will show the following when it completes successfully

Created symlink of /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/etc/truststore.pem
30/09/2025 10:28:36 [INFO] Update status: Done post-install scripts
30/09/2025 10:28:36 [INFO] Update status: Running VMware tools reconfiguration
30/09/2025 10:28:36 [INFO] Running /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_reconfigure_tools
vmware-toolbox-cmd is /bin/vmware-toolbox-cmd
vmtoolsd wrapper not required on this VM with systemd.
30/09/2025 10:28:36 [INFO] Update status: Done VMware tools reconfiguration
30/09/2025 10:28:36 [INFO] Update status: Running finalizing installation
30/09/2025 10:28:36 [INFO] Running /opt/vmware/var/lib/vami/update/data/job/9/manifest_update
30/09/2025 10:28:36 [INFO] Update status: Done finalizing installation
30/09/2025 10:28:36 [INFO] Update status: Update completed successfully
30/09/2025 10:28:36 [INFO] Install Finished

Additional Information

For further preparation guidelines, refer to: Preparing the Transfer Server Storage for Your VMware Cloud Director Appliance
Cloud Director requirements when using NFS for the transfer server storage