vLCM Image Import Fails With Unknown Error During Retrieval of Vendor Addon

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Sphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) offline depot or vendor add-on imports fail in vCenter Server. Furthermore, subsequent uploads of any image type for the specific ESXi version, including standard base images without vendor add-ons, consistently fail.

The /var/log/vmware/vmware-updatemgr/vum-server/vum-server.log records the following error during the CreateOfflineDepotTask:

Failed to cache depot content: Error:
--> com.vmware.vapi.std.errors.error
--> Messages:
--> com.vmware.vcIntegrity.lifecycle.depotContent.addOns.UnknownErrorGeneral<Unknown error occurred during the retrieval of vendor addon.>

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x

Cause

Offline depot import tasks fail due to a metadata collision within the vLCM image service. The incoming depot contains a vendor add-on that shares a releaseID with an add-on already present in the vCenter repository, but the releaseDate attributes do not match, causing depot validation to abort.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, reset the VMware Update Manager (VUM) database and clear the patch store to remove the conflicting metadata, then re-attempt the import.

Note: The standard Delete Depot Task API cannot be used to clean up the content because the initial import failed before a depot ID was recorded in the database.

1. Take an offline snapshot or file-based backup of the vCenter Server.

2. SSH into the vCenter Server Appliance as root and switch to the BASH shell by typing shell.

3. Stop the Update Manager service: service-control --stop vmware-updatemgr

4. Reset the database: python /usr/lib/vmware-updatemgr/bin/updatemgr-utility.py reset-db

5. Delete the contents of the patch store: rm -rf /storage/updatemgr/patch-store/*

6. Start the Update Manager service: service-control --start vmware-updatemgr

Additional Information

Resetting VMware Update Manager Database