VCF 9.1 vCenter Upgrade fails at VCENTER UPGRADE POST INSTALL VM HARDWARE UPGRADE

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer
• VMware Cloud Foundation

Issue/Introduction

• When upgrading to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, the vCenter upgrade task fails in SDDC Manager at the following stage:

  VCENTER UPGRADE POST INSTALL VM HARDWARE UPGRADE

• 

Environment

VMware SDDC Manager 9.1
VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1

Cause

The VCF 9.1 lifecycle automation framework includes a hardcoded task to ensure the vCenter Server appliance is at virtual hardware version 17. If the vCenter Server VM hardware was manually upgraded to a higher version (e.g., version 21) prior to the VCF task, the validation routine fails because it cannot process a hardware revision that exceeds its architectural baseline. This creates an inventory mismatch that blocks downstream orchestration. Refer: Upgrading the hardware version or VMware Tools on vCenter Server

Resolution

To unblock the VCF upgrade, manually revert the vCenter Server Appliance's Virtual Hardware version to 17.

1. Take a snapshot of the vCenter Server VM at the ESXi host layer before proceeding.
2. Gracefully shut down the vCenter Server appliance via the vSphere Client or ESXi Host Client.
3. SSH to the ESXi host where the vCenter Server VM is registered using root credentials.
4. Change to the datastore directory containing the vCenter configuration files: `cd /vmfs/volumes/<Datastore>/<vCenter-Folder>/` and backup the configuration file:
   cp <VM-Name>.vmx <VM-Name>.vmx.bak
   
   
5. Open the .vmx file in a text editor (e.g., `vi`) and locate the line `virtualHW.version = "21"` (or the current version) and change it to virtualHW.version = "17".
6. Save and exit the editor.
7. Find the Virtual Machine ID (VMID) for the vCenter Server so that configuration can be loaded into the host's memory:
   vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep -i <vCenter-Name>
   
   
8. Reload the VM Configuration: Using the VMID identified in the previous step, execute the reload command:
   vim-cmd vmsvc/reload <VM_ID>
   
   
9. Power on the vCenter Server Appliance and wait for all core services to fully initialize and stabilize.
10. Log back into the SDDC Manager dashboard and click Retry on the failed upgrade task..
11. Once the upgrade proceeds successfully and the environment is confirmed stable, safely delete the vCenter Server snapshot.

Additional Information

Upgrading the hardware version or VMware Tools on vCenter Server