HCX 9.x fails to discover VCF licenses with "Failed to get vCenter license expiry details" error

Products

• VMware HCX

Issue/Introduction

When integrating VMware HCX 9.x with a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) environment, you may experience the following symptoms:

• HCX fails to automatically discover the VCF license assigned to the vCenter Server.
• The HCX Manager UI displays a banner stating the appliance is in Evaluation Mode, despite a valid VCF license being present in the vCenter.
• In the /common/logs/admin/app.log on the HCX Manager, you observe the following error:
  
  

  ERROR c.v.v.h.s.l.DiscoverVCLicenseJob- Error in obtaining license for VCenter, config: {"url":"https://<VC-FQDN>","userName":"<service-account>"}
  java.lang.RuntimeException: Failed to get vcenter license expiry details.

Environment

VCF Operations HCX 9.x

Cause

This issue occurs if the user account (service account) used to register the vCenter Server within HCX does not have sufficient permissions to query licensing information from the vCenter. Specifically, if the account is not a member of the vCenter Administrators group, the DiscoverVCLicenseJob fails to retrieve the license expiry and entitlement details, causing the licensing sync to fail.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, ensure the account used for HCX to vCenter registration has the appropriate administrative privileges:

1. Log in to the vSphere Client as an administrator.
2. Navigate to Administration > Single Sign-On > Users and Groups.
3. Select the Groups tab and locate the Administrators group.
4. Add the service account used by HCX to the Administrators group.
5. Log in to the HCX Manager Appliance Management interface (port 9443).
6. Navigate to Configuration > vCenter Server.
7. Verify the connection and ensure the user is part of the administrator group.
8. Log in to the HCX Service UI to verify the "Evaluation Mode" banner is no longer present and the VCF entitlement is recognized.

Additional Information

HCX under VCF not automatically acquiring licenses