Unable to Login to vSphere Client or Web Client

[kbull]

After a staffing change we had to change all system passwords and since then I have been unable to login to the vCenter Server using either the vSphere Client (desktop) or the vSphere Web Client. I have tried locally and remotely. The vCenter Server is a physical Server 2008 R2 server I am running vSphere 5.1.

When I try to login tot the vSphere Client using Windows Session Credentials I get the error "Error Connecting. A general system error occured: Authorize Exceptino". When I try to login to login to the Web Client with domain credentials I get "The authentication server returned an unexpected error: ns0:RequestFailed: Failed to connect to the identity source. Possible reasons include invalid user name or password, connection refusal, connection timeout, or failure to resolve hostname. The error may be caused by a malfunctioning identity source." When I try to login to the Web Client using the "admin@System-Domain" account I get "Associated user's password is expired" and it won't let me know.

I know that this is likely an issue where the account used to login and authenticate with Active Directory has either been disabled or had the password changed but for the life of me I cannot get intot he web client to update this. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[JimKnopf99]

Hi,

are your services for the vCenter running with one of that accounts that have change the password?

If so, please change the password in the service manager and restart the vCenter Services. All of them.

Frank

[kbull]

I don't believe any of my VMware services are running as domain accounts they are all using local accounts BUT we did change the local system administrator password which is what was being used for the "VMware VirtualCenter Server" and "VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices" accounts. I updated the passwords and restarted the services and still no luck. I reboot my vCenter server and now I cannot get either of those services to start. When I try to start the "VMware VirtualCenter Server" service I get the following error:

Windows could not start the VMware VirtualCenter Server on VCENTER. For more information, review the System Event Log. If this is a non-Microsoft service, contact the service vendor, and refer to service-specific error code 2.

In event viewer I get the following error:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        VMware VirtualCenter Server
Date:          9/25/2013 4:24:19 PM
Event ID:      1000
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      vCenter.abc.net
Description:
The description for Event ID 1000 from source VMware VirtualCenter Server cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down...

the message resource is present but the message is not found in the string/message table

Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="VMware VirtualCenter Server" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2013-09-25T20:24:19.000000000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>12992</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>vCenter.abc.net</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down...</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Any other ideas on this one?

[JimKnopf99]

Did you get any other error Messages in the vCenter log files?

VMware KB: Location of vCenter Server log files

Frank