Content Library synchronization of OVF templates fails on subscriber vCenter with error ''File [Datastore_name] /<contentlib-ID>/<Template-ID>/<filename> was not found"

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• During a synchronization failure, the following error is observed in the vSphere Client of the vCenter Server hosting the subscriber library:
  
  File [Datastore_name] /<contentlib-ID>/<Template-ID>/<filename> was not found.
Deletion of file or directory [Datastore_name] /<contentlib-ID>/<Template-ID>/<filename> from <ClusterName> Content Library #### was initiated from 'cl/[email protected]' and completed with status 'Failure'
  
  
• /var/log/vmware/content-library/cls.log have the following entries:
   
  • Subscriber vCenter:
    YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ | INFO     | OPID | transferService-pool-7-thread-846 | HttpClientEndpointImpl         | Transfer session <sessionID>: Received a 503 response while requesting https://VC_FQDN:443/cls/vcsp/lib/ContentlibraryID/Template_ID/ovf%20descriptor. Retrying...

  • Publisher vCenter:
    YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS | DEBUG    | OPID | tomcat-http-26            | RequestController              | Transfer for file <filename> in item <ID> scheduled for deferred result
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS | ERROR    | OPID | tomcat-http-26            | VcspServerImpl                 | file <filename> was not found in library item <ID>


• The template-level synchronization task completes successfully for the failed OVF template.
• Total number of items across the publisher vCenter content library exceeds 100. 

Note:

• Each template may contain several number of items.
• For example: template.ovf, template.vmdk, template_1.vmdk, template.nvram
• Here the total items for the OVF template is 4.  

Environment

vCenter Server 

Cause

This issue occurs due to a PostgreSQL pagination limitation in the publisher vCenter. The system retrieves content library items in pages of 100 using OFFSET-based SQL queries. When the total number of items exceeds 100, items are distributed across multiple pages, and components of a single template may span page boundaries. Because PostgreSQL can return rows in varying orders between queries, some file rows may fall outside the expected page range and be skipped during synchronization.

Resolution

Broadcom Engineering is aware of this issue and a fix will be included in a future vCenter patch release.

Workaround:
Reduce the number of OVF templates in the publisher Content Library to ensure the total number of corresponding items are fewer than 100. This ensures that synchronization occurs in a single PostgreSQL page and avoids the pagination issue.