Services are not starting after updating VMware Cloud Director

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• After upgrading from an older version of VMware Cloud Director (VCD) to VCD 10.6.x, the VCD services do not appear to be starting correctly.
• In /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/logs/vmware-vcd-watchdog.log, behavior similar to the following occurs repeatedly and does not seem to recover:
  
  2025-10-24 03:24:41 | ERROR | vmware-vcd-cell failed to start due to an unknown error; will attempt to restart on next check
2025-10-24 03:24:41 | WARN  | wget failed, return code: 4, will retry in 30 seconds
2025-10-24 03:25:11 | WARN  | wget failed, return code: 4, will retry in 30 seconds
2025-10-24 03:25:41 | WARN  | wget failed, return code: 4, will retry in 30 seconds
  
  
• The VCD UI does not respond.
• An error similar to the following can be seen in /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/logs/cell-runtime.log:
  
  2025-10-24 03:24:40,885 | FATAL    | Bootstrap Application     | BootstrapApplication           | Fatal exception caught during application bootstrap. Halting application. Message: Error creating bean with name cellCertificateBootstrapDao defined in class path resource [com/vmware/vcloud/common/main/bootstrap/phase2/bootstrap-datasource-context.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: ERROR: column "webserver_cert_consumer_id" does not exist
  Position: 41 |
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'cellCertificateBootstrapDao' defined in class path resource [com/vmware/vcloud/common/main/bootstrap/phase2/bootstrap-datasource-context.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: ERROR: column "webserver_cert_consumer_id" does not exist
  Position: 41
...

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 10.6.x

Cause

Upgrading from an older version of VMware Cloud Director (VCD) involves a number of changes to the database configuration to accommodate the most recent functionality, which would include adjustments to the storage and retrieval of the certificates used for the VCD interface. This requires the application of a database update after the completion of the upgrade and before placing the system into use. If these changes are not performed, then the VCD service will encounter issues retrieving the information required to start correctly.

Resolution

At the appropriate point in the upgrade process, apply the database update via the upgrade utility, as documented in step 11 of the following instructions:

Upgrade Your VMware Cloud Director Appliance by Using an Update Package