Error: 'Collection failed with exception' on VCF adapter in Aria Operations

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

• VCF Adapter collection fails with the below error on the Aria Operations UI

Collection failed with exception

• The VCF adapter logs (/storage/vcops/log/adapters/Vcfadapter/vcfadapter.log) show the below error:

2025-12-04T10:24:09,054+0000 ERROR [Collector worker thread 6] (237) com.vmware.vrops.adapter.vcf.VcfAdapter.onCollect - Collection failed with exception
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
        at com.vmware.vrops.adapter.vcf.VcfAdapter.lambda$purgeDeletedResources$0(VcfAdapter.java:352) ~[VcfAdapter.jar:?]
        at java.util.stream.ForEachOps$ForEachOp$OfRef.accept(Unknown Source) ~[?:?]
        at java.util.HashMap$ValueSpliterator.forEachRemaining(Unknown Source) ~[?:?]
        at java.util.stream.AbstractPipeline.copyInto(Unknown Source) ~[?:?]

• The collector logs (/storage/vcops/log/collector.log) show the below error: 

2025-12-04T10:17:15,017+0000 ERROR [TasksManager-TaskHandler-2304]  com.vmware.vrops.adapter.vcf.VcfAdapter.onTest - Failure in onTest() method with exception
com.vmware.vrops.adapter.vcf.exception.VcfException: SSL certificate validation failed: Host name 'sddc_IP' does not match the certificate subject provided by the peer (CN=sddc_FQDN, OU=xx, O=xx, L=xx, ST=xx, C=xx)
        at com.vmware.vrops.adapter.vcf.util.VcfAdapterRestClient.executeWithRetry(VcfAdapterRestClient.java:165) ~[VcfAdapter.jar:?]

Environment

Aria Operations 8.18.x 

Cause

The SSL certificate on SDDC does not contain the IP address of the SDDC appliance under the Certificate Subject Alternative Names section 

Resolution

To resolve this issue, follow the below steps:

• Regenerate the certificate on the SDDC manager to include the SDDC FQDN, IP, and Shortname under the Certificate Subject Alternative Names.
• Login to Aria Operations UI and navigate to Administration -> Integrations -> VCF Adapter 
• Validate Connection to accept the new certificate 
• The status for collection should show 'OK' after one collection cycle completes (typically 5 minutes) 

Additional Information

If there is an SSL Exception error while trying to validate connection, follow the below steps:

• Login to Aria Operations UI and navigate to Administration -> Control Panel -> Trusted Certificates 
• Locate the old SDDC certificates and delete them from the UI 
• If unable to delete them from the UI, follow steps as per this KB 
• Retry validating the connection on the VCF Adapter now.