vCenter HA cluster state is currently degraded. "Appliance state is out of sync"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

The vCenter HA cluster state changes to degraded. It temporarily changes to a degraded state and then automatically recovers to a normal state.

Log:

/var/log/vmware/vcha.log
2025-11-19T17:00:02.866+09:00 error vcha[80684] [Originator@6876 sub=RsyncRepl-largeFrp] Rsync failed, retcode: 23, error: 
--> rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors) (code 23) at main.c(1338) [sender=3.4.1]
2025-11T17:00:02.866+09:00 error vcha[80684] [Originator@6876 sub=ReplFacade-largeFrp] Sync failed: FILE_NAME, event: 8

2025-11-19T17:00:02.870+09:00 info vcha[02664] [Originator@6876 sub=Agent] Cluster state degraded (nodeCount:3, repHealth:false)

2025-11-19T17:00:03.617+09:00 info vcha[80684] [Originator@6876 sub=ReplFacade-largeFrp] Sync com

Environment

vCenter Server

Cause

The failure is due to a failed file transfer between the source and destination during rsync. If the sync is completed in the subsequent cycle after the initial failure, there is no issue.

Common Causes of Rsync Error Code 23 (Partial Transfer Failure) is Permissions Issue, Insufficient Space, Files in Use, Network Issues or File System Issues.

 

Resolution

If a sync failed event occurs and is followed by a sync complete event in the next cycle, the issue should be considered normal behavior.

This is because, at the time of the rsync, the file intended for transfer may have been temporarily unavailable for reading due to one of the reasons mentioned above.

If the file is not consistently unreadable, it will be synchronized without issue in the next cycle.