VCF Upgrade Fails with Invalid Upgrade Spec NSX Manager Needs to be Upgraded First

Products

• VCF Operations
• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

• During a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Management Domain upgrade using VCF Operations, the NSX upgrade finalize step fails to complete.
• The following error message is displayed in the VCF Operations UI:

Scheduling immediate upgrade of bundle failed. Invalid upgrade spec, NSX Manager needs to be upgraded before NSX Datapath Appliance upgrade Remediation: Complete the NSX Manager upgrade first Reference token: #####

• Reviewing the upgrade logs in /var/log/upgrade-coordinator/upgrade-coordinator.log indicates that the NSX Manager upgrade actually completed successfully in the background:

Upgrade element resourceType: NSX_T_MANAGER resourceId: ####### status changed to COMPLETED_WITH_SUCCESS

Environment

VMware NSX
VCF 9.x

Cause

• This issue is caused by an out-of-band or out-of-order upgrade of the NSX Manager if the NSX Manager is upgraded directly via the NSX Manager UI rather than strictly following the VCF Operations orchestrated upgrade sequence, VCF Operations temporarily loses synchronization with the actual upgrade state of the NSX components.

Resolution

• Do not perform any further manual interventions or attempt to force the upgrade directly from the NSX Manager UI.

• Allow VCF Operations time to execute its background state synchronization and inventory polling tasks. VCF Operations will automatically self-correct once it polls and detects the updated NSX Manager version.

• Monitor the VCF Operations UI. Once the system successfully recognizes that the NSX Manager upgrade is complete, the UI will update automatically to reflect the accurate state.

• Proceed with the remaining upgrade steps (NSX Edge Cluster upgrade and NSX Upgrade Finalize) strictly from within the VCF Operations UI.

• To prevent this issue during future lifecycles, ensure all component upgrades are executed entirely through VCF Operations in the officially documented sequence.