vCenter 9.1 license assignment fails: "License capacity is insufficient. Free up capacity in this license, allocate more capacity to the license, or assign another license with sufficient capacity to the vCenter System."

Products

• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

• After performing an upgrade of vCenter from 9.0.2 to 9.1.0 , the license assignment on vCenter System from VCF Operations UI fails with below error:
  

  "License capacity is insufficient. Free up capacity in this license, allocate more capacity to the license, or assign another license with sufficient capacity to the vCenter System."

• The vCenter  "/var/log/vmware/cis-license/license.log" contains below entries:
  
  

  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpRequestInterceptor"] HTTP Request: POST http://localhost:1080/external-vecs/http1/<vCenter-FQDN>/443/lsc/entitlements/assignments
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpRequestInterceptor"] HTTP Request Header: [Accept: application/json]
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpRequestInterceptor"] HTTP Request Header: [Authorization: AK1***OBFUSCATED***rj8]
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpRequestInterceptor"] HTTP Request Header: [User-Agent: cis-license/######-####-####-####-###########]
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpRequestInterceptor"] HTTP Request Header: [Accept-Encoding: gzip, x-gzip, deflate]
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpRequestInterceptor"] HTTP Request Body: {"allocation_id":"######-####-####-####-########","assignment_type":"AUTOASSIGN","vc_context":{"vc_id":"######-####-####-####-########","vc_name":"<vCenter-FQDN>","vc_version
  ":"9.1"},"assets":[{"product_family_version":"9.0","product_family":"VMware ESX Server","id":"urn:vri:com.vmware.license.asset:host-######-####-####-####-########","name":"<ESXI1-FQDN>","asset_uri":"urn:vri:com.vmware.license.asset:host-######-####-####-####-########","usages":[{"usage":48,"cost_unit":"cpuCore:16core"}]},{"product_family_version":"9.0",
  "product_family":"VMware ESX Server","id":"urn:vri:com.vmware.license.asset:host-######-####-####-####-########","name":"<ESXI2-FQDN>","asset_uri":"urn:vri:com.vmware.license.asset:host-######-####-####-####-########","usages":[{"usage":48,"cost_unit":"cpuCore:16core"}]},{"product_family_version":"9.0","product_family":"VMware ESX Server","id":"urn:vri:com.
  vmware.license.asset:host-######-####-####-####-########","name":"<ESXI3-FQDN>","asset_uri":"urn:vri:com.vmware.license.asset:host-######-####-####-####-########","usages":[{"usage":48,"cost_unit":"cpuCore:16core"}]},{"product_family_version":"9.1","product_family":"VMware VirtualCenter Server","id":"urn:vri:com.vmware.license.asset:########-####-####-####-
  ############-########-####-####-####-############","name":"HYPVC1.hypotenuse.com","asset_uri":"urn:vri:com.vmware.license.asset:########-####-####-####-############-########-####-####-####-############","usages":[]}]}
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpResponseInterceptor"] HTTP Response: 400 Bad Request
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpResponseInterceptor"] HTTP Response Header: [server: nginx/1.29.3]
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpResponseInterceptor"] HTTP Response Header: [date: Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:07:27 GMT]
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpResponseInterceptor"] HTTP Response Header: [content-type: application/json;charset=UTF-8]
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpResponseInterceptor"] HTTP Response Header: [content-length: 254]
  INFO CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="license.licenseserver.client.http.LicenseServerHttpResponseInterceptor"] HTTP Response Body: {"message":"Insufficient capacity: requesting 48 but entitlement 'VMware Cloud Foundation' (########-####-####-####-############) has available capacity 144 (used 144)","http_status_code":400
  ,"code":21004,"error_type":"INSUFFICIENT_ENTITLEMENT_CAPACITY"}
  ERROR CISLicense 32 [vc@4413 threadName="http-nio-0.0.0.0-12080-exec-1" logger="managment.server.vapi.impl.LicenseServerEntitlementsDelegate"] Caught exception:
  com.vmware.cis.license.embedded.server.core.management.exception.LicenseAssignmentException$LicenseLimitExceededException: Entitlement assignment failed with error: INSUFFICIENT_ENTITLEMENT_CAPACITY
          at com.vmware.cis.license.entitlement.management.LicenseServerEntitlementManager.assignEntitlementInLicenseServer(LicenseServerEntitlementManager.java:304)

Environment

VCF Operations 9.1

Cause

The license assignment failed because of an assetUri mismatch between VCF Operations 9.1 and the upgraded vCenter 9.1.
This discrepancy caused the License Server to treat the single vCenter instance as two separate entities.

Resolution

Recommendation: Ensure that vCenter remains connected to VCF Operations for at least one full collection cycle (minimum of 5 minutes) before starting the license assignment task on the vCenter system.

If a capacity mismatch or incorrect capacity allocation occurs, you can reclaim the license capacity and reassign it correctly by following these steps:

• Reclaim the Capacity: Navigate to the License Servers section within VCF Operations UI and select the option to Reclaim capacity.

  • For detailed, step-by-step guidance on this process, refer to the official documentation: VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 - Reclaim Used Capacity.

• Wait for 1 collection cycle  (>=5 mins) 

• Reassign Licenses: Once the collection cycle is complete, try assigning the license to the vCenter System.