SDDC Manager upgrade fails with error: "a message without content type" and red banner is seen in SDDC Manager.

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager

Issue/Introduction

• Upgrading the SDDC Manager to 5.x version fails.
• The UI does not have a dicernible error, with red banner during the SDDC Manager Deployment Drift stage:
  
• Below log entries are seen in /var/log/vmware/vcf/commonsvcs/vcf-commonsvcs.log
  
  ####-##-##T##:##:## ERROR [common,##] [c.v.e.s.e.h.VcfFallbackErrorController,http-nio-###.#.#.#-##-exec-5] [OM917R] - Error attributes: {timestamp=## ### ## 1
0:##:## UTC ####, status=500, error=Internal Server Error, exception=com.vmware.evo.sddc.taskaggregator.rest.api.controller.legacy.SWERestException, trace=com.vmware.evo.sddc.taskaggregator.rest.api.control
ler.legacy.SWERestException: Cannot invoke "java.lang.Long.longValue()" because the return value of "com.vmware.evo.sddc.orchestrator.rest.api.model.Workflow.getStartTime()" is null

...

##-##-##T##:##:##.###+0000 ERROR [common,0000000000000000,0000] [o.a.c.c.C.[.[.[.[dispatcherServlet],http-nio-127.0.0.1-7100-exec-3] Servlet.service() for servlet [dispatcherServlet] in context with path [] threw exception [Request processing failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException] with root cause
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
 at com.vmware.evo.sddc.taskaggregator.rest.api.controller.v1.TasksAggregatorAssembler.toTask(TasksAggregatorAssembler.java:81)
 at com.vmware.evo.sddc.taskaggregator.rest.api.controller.v1.TaskAggregatorController.lambda$getTasks$0(TaskAggregatorController.java:82)
 at java.base/java.util.stream.ReferencePipeline$3$1.accept(ReferencePipeline.java:195)
 at java.base/java.util.LinkedList$LLSpliterator.tryAdvance(LinkedList.java:1253)
 at java.base/java.util.stream.ReferencePipeline.forEachWithCancel(ReferencePipeline.java:127)
 at java.base/java.util.stream.AbstractPipeline.copyIntoWithCancel(AbstractPipeline.java:502)
 at java.base/java.util.stream.AbstractPipeline.copyInto(AbstractPipeline.java:488)
 at java.base/java.util.stream.AbstractPipeline.wrapAndCopyInto(AbstractPipeline.java:474)
 at java.base/java.util.stream.ReduceOps$ReduceOp.evaluateSequential(ReduceOps.java:913)
 at java.base/java.util.stream.AbstractPipeline.evaluate(AbstractPipeline.java:234)
 at java.base/java.util.stream.ReferencePipeline.collect(ReferencePipeline.java:578)
 at com.vmware.evo.sddc.taskaggregator.rest.api.controller.v1.TaskAggregatorController.getTasks(TaskAggregatorController.java:89)
 at com.vmware.evo.sddc.taskaggregator.rest.api.controller.v1.TaskAggregatorController$$FastClassBySpringCGLIB$$d677b4fa.invoke(<generated>)
 at org.springframework.cglib.proxy.MethodProxy.invoke(MethodProxy.java:218)
  
  Note: The above error should be seen in the vcf-commonsvcs.log for this KB to be applicable for this issue.

Environment

VCF 5.x

Cause

This issue happens due to a preexisting task within the task_metadata table that doesn't have a workflow starttime set. 

Resolution

To resolve this issue, open a case with Broadcom support: https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/142884/creating-and-managing-broadcom-support-c.html