"Machine already belongs to a deployment" failure when trying to onboard machines in Aria Automation

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to onboard machines in Aria Automation you get error in relocation logs (services-logs\prelude\relocation-service-app\file-logs\relocation-service-app.log):

Machine [<VMNAME1>] already belongs to a deployment.
Machine [<VMNAME2>] already belongs to a deployment.

Sample Logs: 

[Machine [VM Name to be Onboarded] already belongs to a deployment.])]]Z ERROR relocation [host='relocation-service-app-XXXX-XXXX' thread='reactor-http-epoll-4' user='' org='' trace='' parent='' span=''] c.v.r.wo.quick.QuickOnboardingTask - [XXXX/relocation/api/wo/quick/onboard-resources/XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX] java.util.concurrent.CompletionException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Validation failedat java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.encodeThrowable(CompletableFuture.j

• Error : "Onboard process failed. Review your resources and try onboarding again."
• Under Cloud Assembly > Resources > Virtual Machines the machines do not show as 'Managed' or 'Deployed' but rather as 'Discovered' machines.
• No Deployment appears to have them as resources in the Aria Automation UI.
• When you create the Onboarding plan, create a deployment, the machines to be onboarded are not found

Environment

• VMware Aria Automation 8.x

Cause

This can happen if the VM is still tied to the onboarding plan and needs a cleanup.

Resolution

To resolve the issue, clean up the machine's custom properties via Orchestrator workflow to ensure there are no references to a deployment:

Prerequisites:

• You have backups of the VMware Aria Automation 8.x appliance(s).
• You must back up all VMware Aria Automation appliances at the same time — simultaneously for all nodes.
• If you are making the snapshots manually, you must start the snapshots of the second and third node no more than 40 seconds after you start the snapshots for the first node.
• When you back up the VMware Aria Automation appliance, disable in-memory snapshots and enable quiescing (quiescing is a requirement only for version 8.9 and newer).

 

Procedure: Remove the stale entries using the Orchestrator workflow:

1. Download the code.vmware.kb.346013.unregister.vm.minimal.package package file.

    Attached to KB.

2. Import in to Orchestrator, by following the steps in the article: Import a Package in the Automation Orchestrator Client 
3. Navigate to Assets>>Configuration>>Open "config">>Variables>>3 Variables are seen as below: 

   

4. Click on variable that ends with "vrahost" and assign "value" by selecting Aria Automation URL and "Save" as below: 
      
     

          5. Open the variable that ends with "user" put the user "Value" as "configadmin" and click "Save".
           
             

         6. Open the last variable and put the "value" as the password for the above "configadmin" user. 
         7. Navigate to Library>>Workflow>>Open the workflow "Force Unregister" >> "Variables", variables listed as below:

             

  

8.  Open each variable and turn on button: Bind to Configuration and in "Configuration" >> Select "config"code.vmware.pve.vra.day2.vrahost" >> Click "Save".
9.  Do this for the variables: vm_resource_info_JSON , vm_resource_id and BOOL_TRUE.
10. Run the workflow, this will the VM name >> Put the affected VM name as below: 

     

       11. After the workflow runs successfully, Retry the onboard of the VM.