VMware Remote Console (VMRC) fails with "Invalid or expired session ticket" or "No response was received from the server"

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VMware Remote Console (VMRC) fails with "Invalid or expired session ticket" or "No response was received from the server"

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Article ID: 436152

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to connect to a virtual machine (VM) using VMware Remote Console (VMRC) 11.x or 12.x, the connection fails while the Web Console (HTML5) continues to function correctly.

Users may encounter the following symptoms:

"Failed to connect to {vCenter FQDN}: Invalid or expired session ticket."
"The remote virtual machine {vm-name} on host {vCenter FQDN} cannot be opened: No response was received from the server."

C:\Users\<loginUser>\AppData\Local\Temp\vmware-<loginUser>\vmware-<vmrcPid>-mks-<loginUser>-<remoteMKSPid>.log

TIMESTAMP In(05) vmrc BasicHttpOnSent: xmlReadMemory (NULL == xmlDoc) errorCode 28 responseCode 0 message
TIMESTAMP In(05) vmrc PlayerApp::OnLoginAbort - Failed to connect to FQDN: Invalid or expired session ticket.
TIMESTAMP In(05) vmrc wui::util::GetRemoteLoginPassword: Reading credential manager
TIMESTAMP Er(02) vmrc GLib-GObject: g_signal_handler_disconnect: assertion 'handler_id > 0' failed

Environment

VMRC 11.x / 12.x

Cause

Starting with VMRC 11.0, the application uses WebSockets as the default transfer protocol. This changed the network requirements for direct console access:

Port Change: VMRC now requires direct access to ESXi hosts on TCP port 443 (HTTPS/WebSocket) instead of the legacy port 902.

Resolution

Ensure that TCP port 443 is open between the client machine running VMRC and the management IP addresses of all ESXi hosts. If a firewall or Web Application Firewall (WAF) is in the path, verify that WebSocket traffic is not being inspected or blocked.