Intermittent 'Incorrect User Name or Password' Errors During Cloud Account Deployment

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to deploy or manage multiple cloud accounts within the environment, the process intermittently fails with the following connection error:

com.vmware.photon.controller.model.adapters.vsphere.util.connection.BasicConnection$BasicConnectionException: Failed to connect to vCenter: Error: Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password.

Additional Observations:

• The credentials successfully validate on the cloud account configuration page when tested manually.
• The issue occurs intermittently across multiple cloud accounts.
• Deployments fail specifically with authentication-related errors despite the correct credentials being in use.

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Environment

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)
• VMware vCenter Server
• External Identity Sources (Active Directory/Domain Controllers)

Cause

This issue is typically caused by an underlying problem within the infrastructure's Domain Controller (DC) environment.

Even when credentials are mathematically correct and manually validated, the backend authentication request from vCenter to the identity source (Active Directory) may fail if the Domain Controller is experiencing performance issues, replication lag, or connectivity interruptions. If the vCenter Server cannot receive a timely or valid response from the DC, it returns a generic "incorrect user name or password" fault.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, perform the following troubleshooting steps in coordination with your internal infrastructure teams:

1. Engage the Domain Server Team: Investigate the health and performance of the domain controllers used for vCenter authentication. Check for service restarts, resource exhaustion, or network latency.
2. Verify Identity Source Connectivity: Ensure that the vCenter Server has stable, low-latency network connectivity to all configured identity sources.
3. Check vCenter Identity Source Configuration: Ensure the "localos" identity source is present and functional on the vCenter Server, as missing default domains can cause fallback authentication failures. Identity Source Troubleshooting
4. Review Authentication Logs: Examine the following vCenter logs for specific "Access Denied" or "Login Failure" details during the intermittent windows:
• audit_events.log
• websso.log
• vmware-identity-sts.log
5. Monitor DC Stabilization: Once maintenance or repairs are performed on the domain controller environment, verify if the intermittent deployment failures cease.