Duplicate Licensing Entries in vCenter Leading to “Unlicensed” Status

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

^{In certain environments, administrators may observe that vCenter Server is flagged as “Unlicensed” in the vSphere UI, even though valid licenses have already been applied. This situation typically arises when duplicate license entries exist in the vCenter license inventory.}

 

Environment

^{VMware vCenter Server 7.x}

^{VMware vCenter Server 8.x}

Cause

 ^{1. The license inventory contains duplicate entries for the same vCenter instance.}

 ^{2. These duplicate entries result in vCenter incorrectly reporting its license state as “Unlicensed.”}

Resolution

^{To resolve the issue, administrators should manually remove the duplicate license entries from vCenter.}

^{Follow the steps outlined in the official KB article: How to Remove a License Manually from vCenter: 327486}

^{Summary of Steps}

     ^{1. Log in to the vCenter Server.}

     ^{2. Navigate to the license inventory.}

     ^{3. Identify duplicate license entries associated with the vCenter instance.}

     ^{4. Remove the duplicate entries following the procedure in the KB article:327486}

     ^{5. Verify that vCenter now reflects the correct license status.}