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VMware vCenter Single Sign-On (SSO) upgrade runs out of disk space and fails

VMware: vCenter 5.5 Update 2d in Linked Mode
OS: Windows Server 2012 R2
vCenter SSO: Multisite deployment
VMware vCenter 5.5 Update 2e: Release Notes & Installation and Upgrade Issues

I tried to upgrade VMware vCenter 5.5 from Update 2d to Update 2e. The Linked Mode was unconfigured prior to upgrade.

All services were running OK and the server had 20GB of disk space available on the C: drive. After launching the vCenter SSO installer it detected a previous version and prompted to upgrade. The upgrade took a long time and eventually prompted that the server ran out of disk space on the C: drive. On close inspection there were quite a few hs_err_PID*(.log) (where PID – Process ID) Java crash dump files generated in the following folders:

  • C:Program FilesVMwareInfrastructurevSphereWebClientserver
  • C:Program FilesCommon FilesVMwareVMware vCenter Server - tc Serverbinwinx86_64

When the Java error dump files were deleted, I clicked on Retry and SSO upgrade completed successfully. Although no new Java error dump files were generated, the VMware Identity Management Service failed to start. Obviously, the vCenter Server was broken and it was not possible to upgrade other vCenter Services/Modules.

Suspecting something is not right with the VMware JRE, I rolled back the snapshot, restarted the server and tried to upgrade VMware JRE (Java Running Environment) by running VMware-jre.exe from {vCenterInstallationMedia}:vJRE folder (same as from {vCenterInstallationMedia}:Single Sign-Onprerequisites) . The upgrade completed successfully but when I attempted to upgrade SSO, I had exactly the same issues as described. Back to the snapshot… :(

Here is what you need to do to resolve this issue:

  1. Stop all VMware services that rely on VMware JRE:
    • VMware vSphere Profile-Driven Storage Service
    • VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices
    • VMware vSphere Web Client
    • VMware vCenter Inventory Service
    • VMware Secure Token Service
    • VMware Log Browser
    • VMware Identity Management Service
  2. Uninstall VMware vCenter Server – Java Components
    • There are no files left in C:Program FilesCommon FilesVMwareVMware vCenter Server - Java Componentsbin folder
    • There are no running processes using java: tasklist | findstr java
  3. Map the vCenter media of the currently installed version of the vCenter. In my environment, vCenter 5.5 Update 2d
  4. Install VMware vCenter Server – Java Components from {vCenterInstallationMedia}:vJRE folder.
    All services that were stopped in Step 1 will start automatically.
    Restart the server to make sure all vCenter services start successfully…
  5. Map the target version vCenter media
  6. Upgrade vCenter Server

A couple of post-upgrade tips:

  1. Logging in to the Web Client took a VERY long time after the upgrade… As I have quite a few Web Client Plug-ins and some of them have multiple versions, I stopped VMware vSphere Web Client, copied all Plug-in folders from ‘C:ProgramDataVMwarevSphere Web Clientvc-packagesvsphere-client-serenity’ to a new Backup folder and then started VMware vSphere Web Client. Only the latest versions of The Web Client Plug-ins were copied back into the folder. That seems to help with logging in to the Web Client;
  2. vCenter Upgrade Manager upgrade failed but completed successfully when I enabled Internet access on the VUM server;
  3. If you need to check VMware Java version installed, run the following command:
    C:Program FilesCommon FilesVMwareVMware vCenter Server - Java Componentsbin
    >java.exe -version
    java version "1.7.0_55"
    Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_55-b32)
    Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.55-b03, mixed mode)

Hope this will help.

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