"Invalid UUID string" when executing curl commands in SDDC Manager

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to update or trigger a workflow in SDDC Manager using a curl command, the command fails with an "Invalid UUID string" error. This occurs even if the UUID visually appears to be correct.
• Execution of the following command: curl -k -s http://localhost/domainmanager/internal/vault/<UUID> -X PUT -H "Content-type: text/plain" -d @/tmp/workflow.json
• Error traces in /var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/domainmanager.log:
  message-Failed to convert value of type 'java.lang.String' to required type 'java.util.UUID'; Invalid UUID string: /domainmanager/internal/vault/<task_id>
[VCF_RUNTIME_ERROR] Unhandled error caught. To get details about the error, search for [JPVAUA] in the logs
com.vmware.evo.sddc.common.core.error.LocalizableRuntimeException: Unhandled error caught.

Environment

SDDC Manager 5.2.x

Cause

The error is caused by hidden non-ASCII characters or encoding mismatches introduced during a copy-paste operation from a Windows environment to the Linux-based SDDC Manager CLI.

Specifically:

• Legacy Windows applications (Outlook, Word, etc.) often use Windows-1252 encoding or "Smart Formatting" which converts standard hyphens (0x2D) into En Dashes or adds hidden Unicode metadata.

• When pasted into a UTF-8 Linux terminal, these characters are misinterpreted. The log shows the string being concatenated or mangled (e.g., Invalid UUID string: <ID>/domainmanager/internal/vault/<ID>), indicating the shell did not parse the URI boundaries correctly due to these hidden characters.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, sanitize the command string to ensure only standard ASCII characters are used:

• Use Plain Text Editors: Copy the UUID or the full command into a neutral editor like Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac in Plain Text mode) before pasting it into the Linux terminal.

• Manual Entry: If the error persists, manually type the UUID string instead of pasting it to ensure no hidden metadata is included.

• Sanitize via Terminal: If you must paste, use the following method to strip hidden characters:

  • Paste the command into the terminal but do not press Enter.

  • Use the backspace key to delete the hyphens in the UUID and re-type them manually.

• Verification: Verify the string encoding in the Linux shell using the following command:
  # Replace <UUID> with the string you are trying to use
  echo -n "<UUID>" | od -c

• Ensure that hyphens appear only as - and no backslash sequences (like \342 \200) appear between the numbers.