Error: "Error while starting vCenter services"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• vCenter showing No healthy upstream
• While starting services we see services not starting
• STS logs reporting 

  Signing certificate is not valid at Mon Oct 13 09:21:07 GMT 2025, cert validity

• And errors for Solution User Certificate 

  [com.vmware.identity.sts.InvalidCredentialsException] Censored exception
  com.vmware.identity.sts.InvalidCredentialsException: Solution user cert is not valid.
          at com.vmware.identity.sts.auth.impl.BSTAuthenticator.checkValidCertificate(BSTAuthenticator.java:220) ~[libsts.jar:?]
          at com.vmware.identity.sts.auth.impl.BSTAuthenticator.doAuthenticate(BSTAuthenticator.java:118) ~[libsts.jar:?]
          at com.vmware.identity.sts.auth.impl.BSTAuthenticator.authenticate(BSTAuthenticator.java:85) ~[libsts.jar:?]
          at com.vmware.identity.sts.auth.impl.CompositeAuthenticator.authenticate(CompositeAuthenticator.java:54) ~[libsts.jar:?]
  

• Environment check with vCert is showing all certificates valid

Environment

vSphere vCenter Server 8.X

Cause

• No DNS configured on the vCenter

Resolution

• Add DNS resolution, read more at DNS Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance
• As a workaround to start services add IP manually to VAMI_CONFIG_NET, read more at Update DNS Server IP address for vCenter Server