WCP service fails to start with DNS/FQDN errors due to NSX Manager cluster health issues

Products

• VMware NSX
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

The Workload Control Plane (WCP) service in vCenter fails to start.

One or more of the following symptoms may be observed:

• ESXi hosts are unable to enter Maintenance Mode (MM)
• Errors in vCenter referencing DNS or FQDN issues, such as:
  • error wcp [nsxtlib/serverinfo.go:247] Failed to parse NSX extension server URL; https://;; communications error to <DNS_server_IP>#53: connection refused:443, err: parse "https://;; communications error to <DNS_server_IP>": invalid character " " in host name
2026-02-26T20:30:31.927Z error wcp [vclib/nsx.go:52] Received error seeding nsxManagersCache: failed to parse NSX server url: parse "https://;; communications error to <DNS_server_IP>": invalid character " " in host name
2026-02-26T20:30:31.928Z panic wcp [cmd/main.go:481] Unable to initialize NSX extension monitor: failed to parse NSX server url: parse "https://;; communications error to <DNS_server_IP>": invalid character " " in host name

• The following or similar alert is displayed when accessing the NSX Manager or NSX Global Manager UI:
  
  • Some appliance components are not functioning properly
Component health: SEARCH:UNKNOWN, MANAGER:UNKNOWN, NODE_MGMT:UP, UI:UP
Error code: 101

Environment

• VMware NSX 4.x
• VMware vCenter Server

Cause

• The NSX Manager cluster is in an unhealthy or degraded state, preventing proper communication with configured DNS servers.
  
  
• As a result, DNS resolution requests fail or return invalid data, leading to WCP service initialization errors.
  
  
• In some scenarios, this degradation is associated with known issues affecting internal NSX services (for example, issues impacting the Corfu compactor), which can lead to cluster instability and loss of functionality.

Resolution

1. Confirm the health and status of the NSX Manager cluster.
   
   
2. If the cluster is degraded or unavailable, identify and address the underlying issue affecting cluster health (for example, services, or clustering state).
   
   
3. Once the NSX Manager cluster is healthy and able to properly communicate with external services such as DNS, retry starting the WCP service.

Additional Information

See the following KBs for reference:

/config partition disk usage high and very high Alarm

"Some appliance components are not functioning properly - Error code: 101" Error displayed when attempting to log in to NSX manager due to JDK impacting corfu compactor

vCenter WCP service unable to start due to NSX-T FQDN invalid character invalid character in host name or unable to reach DNS server configured on NSX manager(s)