vCenter not connecting to vCloud shows 'N/A'

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

A registered vCenter Server in VMware Cloud Director (vCD) displays a connection status of N/A in the vCD Service Provider Admin Portal. Attempting VM management operations, such as Undeploy or Power Off, for resources managed by this vCenter fails with connectivity errors and an underlying VIM fault.

The following error is observed in the vcloud-container-debug.log:

Caused by: com.vmware.ssdc.library.exceptions.GenericVimFaultException: Underlying system error: com.vmware.vim.binding.vim.fault.TaskInProgress
vCenter Server task (moref: task-XXX) failed in vCenter Server 'XXXX'

Manual actions such as force-reconnect or certificate re-import do not resolve the status or the task failures.

Environment

10.x

Cause

The issue is caused by a stale connection, session, or cached state for the specific vCenter Server within the vCloud Director cell cluster. The VIM fault TaskInProgress observed during VM operations is symptomatic of vCD being desynchronized from vCenter, where vCD believes an existing or previous management task is still running, or its internal VIM proxy service is in an inconsistent state.

This stale state is often not cleared by simple manual reconnects or vCenter restarts, but rather requires a reset of the vCD internal processes and memory.

Resolution

The resolution is to perform a controlled rolling restart of all vCloud Director cells in the server group to clear the stale connection state and force a new synchronization with the vCenter Server.

Workaround/Resolution Steps (Controlled Rolling Restart):

Prerequisites:

• Ensure the vCloud Director database is backed up.

• Ensure no critical, long-running tasks are in progress in vCD.

1. Quiesce and Shut Down the First vCD Cell (Cell-1):

   • SSH into the first vCD cell appliance.

   • Quiesce the cell to prevent new tasks from being assigned:

     /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool -u <admin_user> cell --quiesce true
     

   • Monitor the cell status until the active job count reaches zero:

     /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool -u <admin_user> cell --status
     

   • Shut down the vCD service and the cell:

     /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/bin/cell-management-tool -u <admin_user> cell --shutdown
     

     Wait for the service to stop completely.

   • Shut down the OS (or simply restart the appliance):

     shutdown -r now
     

2. Monitor Startup of Cell-1:

   • Wait for the cell to fully reboot and for the vCD service to start. Monitor the vcloud-container-debug.log for the application initialization to complete.

3. Repeat for Remaining Cells:

   • Repeat Step 1 and Step 2 for the remaining vCD cells, performing the process one cell at a time to maintain high availability and service continuity.

4. Verify Resolution:

   • After all cells have been restarted, log back into the vCD Service Provider Admin Portal.

   • Navigate to the vCenter Server instance and verify that the Connection Status has changed from N/A to Connected (or the expected status).

   • Verify that VM operations (e.g., Undeploy, Power Off) now complete successfully.

Additional Information

The vCD architecture relies on an internal VIM proxy service (often running on a single cell) for communication and task management with vCenter. Issues with this service, its session, or the associated database records often manifest as connectivity issues and task failures. The cell restart forces a reset and potential failover of this proxy service to a healthy cell, resolving the desynchronization. For more information on VCD architecture, refer to the VMware Cloud Director Installation, Configuration, and Upgrade Guide.