NSX Upgrade Stuck in Paused State During VCF 9.1.x Upgrade

Products

• VMware NSX
• VMware Cloud Foundation

Issue/Introduction

During an upgrade of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) from version 9.1.0.x to 9.1.0.x, the NSX component upgrade phase remains in a PAUSED state.

Symptoms:

• Clicking the Continue button in SDDC Manager/VCF Operations fails to progress the upgrade.
• The NSX upgrade-coordinator service attempts to restart but fails to transition to the Manager node upgrade phase.
• The overall upgrade status remains stalled even after verifying network connectivity between ESXi hosts and NSX Managers.

Environment

• Product: VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1.x
• Component: VMware NSX (Management Plane)
• Configuration: NSX Manager nodes deployed with Small Form Factor or Extra Small Form Factor.

Cause

The NSX Manager nodes were deployed using the Small Form Factor size, which is not supported for production VCF environments. This configuration provides insufficient CPU and Memory resources for the upgrade-coordinator service to perform the intensive synchronization and metadata migration required for the VCF 9.1.x upgrade path.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, the NSX Manager nodes must be resized to a supported production form factor (Medium or Large).

Prerequisites

• Ensure a valid backup of the NSX Manager cluster exists: Start or Schedule Backups 

Procedure

Steps need to be applied to one NSX Manager node at a time and cluster services need to be fully stable before moving onto the next NSX Manager node:

1. Power Off NSX Manager: Power off NSX Manager VM in the management cluster via the vSphere Client (Shut Down Guest OS).
2. Edit Settings: For the powered off VM, navigate to Edit Settings and increase the CPU and Memory reservations to match the target form factor, then save the configuration:
   • Medium: 6 vCPUs, 24 GB RAM
   • Large: 12 vCPUs, 48 GB RAM
3. Power On: Power on the NSX Manager VM and wait for all services to initialize and all cluster services to stabilize before moving onto the next NSX Manager node.

Resume Upgrade (Once all 3 NSX Managers have been successfully re-sized):

1. Resume Upgrade: Return to the SDDC Manager / VCF Operations UI and click Continue to resume the NSX upgrade.

Additional Information

• NSX System Requirements

• Related KB: After NSX Manager Cluster upgrade, NSX prechecks fail or subsequent NSX component upgrades remain stuck in PAUSED state (433494)