Aria Operations Upgrade Fails with Error LCMVROPSYSTEM25029 (HTTP 401 Unauthorized)

Products

• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

During the VMware Aria Operations upgrade via VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle, the process failed at the pre-check or upgrade stage with error codes LCMVROPSYSTEM25029.

The failure resulted in an "HTTP Status 401 – Unauthorized" error, with services such as vpostgres-repl and gemfire failing to run on the primary or target node.

Environment

VCF Operations 9.0.x

Cause

This issue occurs due to a service-level authentication sync failure or a hidden lockout between VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle and the Aria Operations primary node. This can happen if the Lifecycle Manager IP triggers multiple failed authentication attempts during a synchronization or upgrade task, which may not always be visible via standard CLI lockout checks.

Resolution

If password verification and faillock checks show no issues, perform the following steps to manually verify the account and clear the service lock:

Enable Fleet Manager GUI
Access the Fleet Manager interface manually to verify the account connection:

1. SSH into the Aria Suite Lifecycle appliance as root.
2. Enable the hidden UI by running:

   touch /var/lib/vrlcm/UI_ENABLED

3. Access the Fleet Manager GUI via your browser.

Verify Credentials and Reboot

1. Check the password status in the Vault/Locker within the Fleet Manager GUI.
2. If the credentials are correct but the primary node still reports a 401 error, reboot the Fleet Manager appliance
3. A reboot clears the active authentication tokens and service level locks between the components.

Resume Upgrade

1. After the reboot, verify the admin password of the primary node shows as connected.
2. Rerun the Aria Operations update from Aria Suite Lifecycle; it should now proceed successfully.

Cleanup
Once the upgrade is complete, remove the temporary UI flag:

rm /var/lib/vrlcm/UI_ENABLED