vCenter upgrade failed at the VCENTER_UPGRADE_PRECHECK stage.

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When upgrading the vCenter, you are presented with a message similar to below:

vCenter upgrade failed at the VCENTER_UPGRADE_PRECHECK stage. vCenter set target version - The installed vCenter Lifecycle Manager version 8.0.3.XXXX-XXXXX and the target vCenter Lifecycle Manager version 9.1.0.XXXX.XXXXXdo not match. failed. {1}",

Environment

vCenter Server 9.1.0.0

Cause

The root cause is a race condition where the vCenter appliance management API briefly reports an UP_TO_DATE status between the staging and installation phases. Because this time window is extremely narrow, the issue only occurs sporadically.

Resolution

Retry the upgrade operation.