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vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

  • 1.  vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Aug 25, 2011 09:41 PM

    Has anyone else put a vCenter 5 appliance out there and after installing tried renaming the system? After renaming the system through the web interface and restarting the appliance the vCenter Server installation fails to start with error "Error: VC failed to start". Embedded database connectivity tests still pass. I can still startup the ESXi Servers for syslog, coredump, and autodeploy but not the VC service. Any ideas?



  • 2.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Aug 25, 2011 09:52 PM

    Sorry to hear that. One of our engineer will work on this soon.

    Best Regards,

    Max



  • 3.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Aug 26, 2011 03:02 AM

    Ended up logging into the console session as root and manually starting up the vpxd, after is started up successfully the appliance was restarted again and everything came up correctly. Odd but it's working now.



  • 4.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Aug 26, 2011 03:13 AM

    Hello,

    Just saw you update the post. Glad to see that everything works well and pls attach detailed logs/steps if you could reproduct this issue.

    BR

    Yike(ykzhang@vmware.com)



  • 5.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Aug 26, 2011 03:11 AM

    Hello there,

    Thanks for your reporting, and I tried with following steps:

    1. Deploy VCVA

    2. configure embedded DB and start vpxd

    3. Log into web interface https://<VCVA IP address>:5480, browse to Network->Address configuration page.

    4. Change to static configuration and rename hostname to "myvcva"

    5. Restart VCVA VM

    After that, everything works fine.

    So would you pls give some more detailed description about the steps you ever tried to reproduce this issue as well as support bundle log?

    Thanks a lot

    Yike (ykzhang@vmware.com)



  • 6.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Aug 26, 2011 03:53 AM

    After step 5...

    6) change hostname from myvca.mydomain.local to myvca2.mydomain.local

    7) restart

    8) Vpxd failed to start

    9) Login to web interface and manual starting of the process failed but through console as root it would startup

    10) after starting up via console restart

    11) All ok.

    FQDN's were used for both the pre and post change. The lab configuration is IPv4 and does not have access to the internet.



  • 7.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Aug 26, 2011 08:06 AM

    I followed you steps and still find no issue, and my details steps are listed here

    1) change hostname from myvcva to myvcva.eng.vmware.com on web interface https://<ip>:5480

    2) reboot through web interface system->reboot

    3) VCVA could start successfully

    4) Change hostname from myvcva.eng.vwmare.com to hosta.eng.vmware.com through web interface

    5) Stop/start VCVA server on web interface vCenter Server-> Stop vCenter and vCenter Server->Start vCenter

    6) All ok.

    So would you check with me any difference between your steps?

    And if you could reproduce this issue, could you help to collect and attach vc support bundle through tool /usr/lib/vmware-vpx/vc-support.sh?

    Thanks

    Yike (ykzhang@vmware.com)



  • 8.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Aug 28, 2011 07:48 PM

    I had this same exact issue so several times I re-deployed the appliance to try to figure out what was causing the problem.  This last time I only made one change at a time and then rebooted and was able to trace the problem down to the timezone; DON'T CHANGE THE TIMEZONE from the default etc/UTC setting.  If you do the vmware-vpxd service will fail to start after a restart.  I changed the timezone back to etc/UTC and restarted and then everythign was OK again.

    Message was edited by: tWiZzLeR



  • 9.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)
    Best Answer

    Posted Aug 29, 2011 04:05 AM

    Hi :

    Thanks for your reporting.

    I think you hit a known issues on the time changing, please see RN http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-esx-vcenter-server-50-release-notes.html

    ...

    On a vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded database, restarting vpxd might fail. An error message similar to the following appears in the vpxd.log file:
    Alert:false@ /build/mts/release/bora-336896/bora/vpx/vpxd/util/vpxdVdb.cpp:403

    This error occurs if the system clock on the vCenter Server Appliance is reset to a time earlier than the time at which the database was created. This results in the database objects created by the vCenter Server Appliance having time stamps that appear to be in the future. This causes queries for database objects to fail.

    ...

    Please make sure whether you hit this trouble also; if yes, we should skip related operation to avoid this DB trouble; change time zone later was a workaround on our test bed.

    Hope to get good news and more feedback for our products

    Thanks.

    Frank Hou (fhou@vmware.com: VMware QE)



  • 10.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Sep 28, 2011 06:03 PM

    Hello, I have changed the time zone after configuring vCenter 5 and gaining access it, but once its change I cannot start the vCenter service manually either in the webpage or console.



  • 11.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Dec 27, 2011 08:55 PM

    I set timezone through console.

    Europe.

    Norway (WE are at wintertime now)

    it shows:
    your local time is now 22:52 (NO its 21:52)

    PST is 21:52 (which is what CET should be with daylight saving)

    ran timezone thing again through console, then it came up with my correct settings and AD sync worked, and VC started.

    didnt have theese issues in first lab run and production.



  • 12.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Feb 05, 2012 07:41 PM

    This isn't an answer, because resetting the timezone to UTC doesn't let it work.

    It is now February, and this is still a problem.

    When is there going to be a fix?



  • 13.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted May 31, 2012 03:30 PM

    still a problem. I cannot open vcenter

    Error: VC failed to start

    I changed time zone and then it broke. changed it back and it wont unbreak.



  • 14.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted May 31, 2012 03:40 PM

    Mine came after timezone change, reboot, timezone again.

    Sometimes the darn thing doesnt want to respond to anything i really do before i give it hilariously alot of memory, one wanted 32 gb mem before I could start it, then i stopped all processes and gave it 4 gb (how much do i really need for 3 hosts in a lab ?) anyways, that have been a issue many many times too, try that, give it more memory.

    change timezone.

    reboot.

    change back.

    I just created a new vcenter in the lab once more, do it quite often nowdays, and i always get the same problems, and it's seems to be even more memory hungry than a SQL express vcenter 4 install, somehow even though it runs bare metal.



  • 15.  RE: vCenter 5 rename bug (Timezone known issue)

    Posted Jun 07, 2012 07:37 PM

    I was experiencing the same issues above and came across the following kb which resolved my issues. 

    http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2006812