Site onboarding fails with an error "A Form Factor transition is in progress or failed" on a newly deployed SSP

Products

• VMware vDefend Firewall
• VMware vDefend Firewall with Advanced Threat Prevention

Issue/Introduction

On a newly deployed Security Services Platform (SSP), onboarding a site fails immediately with the following error:

A Form Factor transition is in progress or failed for the platform. Onboarding and reconnecting sites is not allowed until the transition is completed successfully.

Symptoms:

• The error appears even though no form factor change was requested on the platform.
• Reconnecting an existing site fails with the same error.
• The platform is otherwise healthy and reports no alarms.
• The failure does not clear on its own – every onboarding attempt fails the same way.

Environment

SSP 5.2

Cause

The SSP records its deployed form factor in the platform configuration only after the deployment has fully completed. The site-service that handles site onboarding reads this configuration once, when it starts up, which happens before the value has been recorded. It therefore holds an empty value in memory for as long as it keeps running, and interprets that empty value as an in-progress form factor change, blocking onboarding.

The platform itself is correctly configured and is not undergoing any form factor change. Only the onboarding service's in-memory copy of the configuration is out of date.

Resolution

To reolve this issue, site service needs to be restarted.

Please contact Broadcom support team for further assistance.