PCNS doesn't recognise new VCenter Appliance

[BillP]

Hi all,

we updated our VCenter Applaince from version 5.5 to 6.0.
But it looks like, PCNS still tries to connect to the old  VCenter Applaince.

If we browse to the menu Host Protection we see the message The vCenter Server VM found in the Inventory is powered off. See the troubleshooting section in the Online Help.

We tried to reconfigure PCNS by running the setup wizard again. The wizard completed successfully and in the Event Log we see the following message  vCenter Server is accessible. PowerChute will be able to issue commands to Virtual Machines or Hosts.

But unfortunately the above error is still there.
How can we configure PCNS to recognise the new VCenter Appliance?

Best regards

Viktor

[BillP]

Hi,

Please attach copies of EventLog.txt, error.log and pcnsconfig.ini. 

[BillP]

Hi,

PCNS is communicating with vCenter Sever. 

On 03/08/2016 you see that PCNS cannot communincate with vCenter. Then on 03/09/2019 PCNS can communicate with vCenter. 

03/08/2016	20:19:08	Cannot connect to vCenter Server. PowerChute may not be able to issue commands to Virtual Machines or Hosts. 	.3.4.9.9
03/08/2016	20:22:49	Powering on VMs on Host vmserver01.contoso.com.	.3.4.9.9
03/08/2016	20:23:32	Powering on VMs on Host vmserver02.contoso.com.	.3.4.9.9
03/08/2016	21:35:59	PowerChute cannot communicate with the Network Management Card.	.3.5.1.5.6.5
03/08/2016	21:35:59	Communication has been established.	.3.5.1.5.6.1
03/09/2016	06:12:36	PowerChute cannot communicate with the Network Management Card.	.3.5.1.5.6.5
03/09/2016	06:12:36	Communication has been established.	.3.5.1.5.6.1
03/09/2016	12:03:11	vCenter Server is accessible. PowerChute will be able to issue commands to Virtual Machines or Hosts.	.3.4.9.9

[BillP]

Hi Bill,

but why PCNS shows us the following message?

[BillP]

Hi,

Open the PCNS web interface and go to Communication Settings. Click on the key next to vCenter Server Password. Enter the current password used to communicate with vCenter and enter a new fictitious password (example 123456789) click OK then click apply. PCNS will attempt to connect to vCenter and will fail. Once that has happened click on the key again enter the fictitious password as the current password and enter the correct password for vCenter as a new password. The click OK and click apply. PCNS will attempt to communicate with vCenter and should succeed. In the event log you will see "vCenter Server is accessible. PowerChute will be able to issue commands to Virtual Machines or Hosts."

If the error message does not disappear in the host protection page let me know and I will log an issue with our engineering team.

[BillP]

Hi Bill,

i tried your suggestion but unfortunately the message is still there.

Best regards

Viktor

[BillP]

Hi,

When you changed the password to the proper password was it accepted by vCenter?

Was this logged in the event log? vCenter Server is accessible. PowerChute will be able to issue commands to Virtual Machines or Hosts.

[BillP]

Hi,

VCenter accepted the password and the message was also logged in the event log.

03/14/2016 08:39:20 vCenter Server is accessible. PowerChute will be able to issue commands to Virtual Machines or Hosts.

[BillP]

Hi,

We tried to reproduce the issue locally by powering off and on the VCSA VM.

We see PCNS cannot communicate with VCSA on Host Protection page and then when it powers back on we see the errors cleared.

The error is something that can occur when you have duplicate VMs in the inventory (as in there are 2 VMs with the same IP address, one of them is powered off). When you query the vCenter Server inventory by IP for VCSA VM you get back the one that is powered off.

Can you confirm that there is only 1 copy of the VCSA VM in the inventory? Try using the MOB Browser, FindByIP/FindByDNSName to see if the correct VM is being returned. Instruction on using MOB can be found in Kbase FA241346.  

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Hi,

that was the solution. We had the old VSphere appliance still in the inventory.

After we deleted the old appliance the errors cleared.

Thank you for your assistance.

Best regards

Viktor