"PBM error occurred during PreCreateCheckCallback: No version for VMODL calls" while creating a virtual machine/vApp from vCenter/VMware Cloud Director

Products

• VMware vCenter Server 7.0
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to select a destination datastore during a virtual machine deployment, the process fails with the following error "Cannot connect to profile-driven storage service."

• Create vApp from VCD fails with error "No version for VMODL calls"

• After finishing the create VM wizard, the create VM operation will fail with the below error -

A general system error occurred: PBM error occurred during PreCreateCheckCallback: No version for VMODL calls to <<last binding: <<TCP 'XXX.0.0.1 : 44336'>, <TCP 'XXX.0.0.1 : 1080'>> >, /pbm/sdk>

• In some cases there is no issue while on the create VM wizard, finishing the create VM wizard, the create VM operation will fail with the error - 
  
  A general system error occurred: PBM error occurred during PreCreateCheckCallback: No version for VMODL calls to <<last binding: <<TCP 'XXX.0.0.1 : 44336'>, <TCP 'XXX.0.0.1 : 1080'>> >, /pbm/sdk>
• Navigating to 'Administration > Access Control > Roles' results in a blank screen.
• And navigating to Administration > Certificate Management reported a "Service not found" error - Error occurred while fetching machine certificates: Service not found: com.vmware.vcenter.certificate_management.vcenter.tis

Environment

VMware vCenter server 7.x

VMware vCenter server 8.x

VMware Cloud Director 10.x

Cause

• This issue occurs when the Profile-Driven Storage Service (vmware-sps) and (vmware-vpxd-svcs) on the vCenter Server is stopped.
  
  
• (vmware-sps) and vmware-vpxd-svcs, depend on valid SSL certificates to establish local communication.
  
  
• When the certificate expired, these services failed to start, breaking the VMODL interface used by the PBM SDK for storage policy validation.

Resolution

1. Connect to the vCenter Server Appliance via SSH.
   (If SSH is disabled, enable it from the VAMI interface: https://<vcenter-fqdn>:5480)
2. Regenerate the Machine SSL certificate using vCert - Scripted vCenter expired certificate replacement utility and ensure all dependent services are restarted.
   
   
3. Once the service has successfully started, retry the VM deployment.
   
   

Additional Information

vCert - Scripted vCenter expired certificate replacement