We had an issue where the VMWare vCentre server was not not allowing people to login anymore, which is a problem as this is how you manage all the hosts and guests and I noticed if you if you were remote the server then you got this error.
If you were locally on the vCentre server and you tried to login you got this error:
This was not the case however the password was correct but something was broken under the hood, so lets navigate to the logs that will tell you what is going on we need the vCentre server that is failing the login, you need to look in the path:
C:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\logs
This will show you a list of folders, of which we require the vmware-vpx folder, this is the management of the server service that manages the logins and the main processes:
Navigate yourself into that folder and order it by date modified and find the file vxpd-<pid> this is highlighted below:
If we open this log file and spool though, this caught my eye as this was an error affecting every login to the client, it would appear a communication channel was offline:
2024-03-25T17:31:04.874Z info vpxd[04708] [Originator@6876 sub=[SSO][AdminAdapter] opID=3853b77a] [FindPersonUser]
2024-03-25T17:31:05.196Z info vpxd[05260] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=710D10BE-000029FE-3a] [VpxLRO] -- BEGIN task-internal-1846007 -- session[520495ec-6905-23c8-a2b0-12b0e01a2b9a]52f5a4da-b864-5b87-fe75-3ef1bbb87f99 -- vmodl.query.PropertyCollector.Filter.destroy -- 520495ec-6905-23c8-a2b0-12b0e01a2b9a(528e4f57-56f5-72c9-368e-a85620c7f2cd)
2024-03-25T17:31:05.203Z info vpxd[05260] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=710D10BE-000029FE-3a] [VpxLRO] -- FINISH task-internal-1846007
2024-03-25T17:31:05.878Z warning vpxd[05272] [Originator@6876 sub=Default] Failed to connect socket; <io_obj p:0x000000002d364b78, h:10812, <TCP '0.0.0.0:0'>, <TCP '12.289.180.9:443'>>, e: system:10061(No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it)
2024-03-25T17:31:05.878Z error vpxd[05272] [Originator@6876 sub=HttpConnectionPool-000001] [ConnectComplete] Connect failed to <cs p:000000000f8fe4e0, TCP:vcente1a.stwater.intra:443>; cnx: (null), error: class Vmacore::SystemException(No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it)
2024-03-25T17:31:05.879Z error vpxd[04708] [Originator@6876 sub=[SSO] opID=3853b77a] [UserDirectorySso] GetUserInfo exception: class Vmacore::Authorize::AuthUserUnresolvedException(User bear.local\lee.croucher, cause: class Vmacore::SystemException(No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it))
2024-03-25T17:31:05.879Z error vpxd[04708] [Originator@6876 sub=[SSO] opID=3853b77a] [UserDirectorySso] NormalizeUserName(bear.local\lee.croucher, false) exception: class Vmacore::Authorize::AuthUserUnresolvedException(User bear.local\lee.croucher, cause: class Vmacore::SystemException(No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it))
2024-03-25T17:31:05.879Z error vpxd[04708] [Originator@6876 sub=User opID=3853b77a] Cannot contact directory service while looking for: BEAR\lee.croucher
2024-03-25T17:31:05.921Z info vpxd[04708] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=3853b77a] [VpxLRO] -- FINISH task-internal-1846006
2024-03-25T17:31:05.921Z info vpxd[04708] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=3853b77a] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-internal-1846006 -- SessionManager -- vim.SessionManager.impersonateUser: vim.fault.InvalidLogin:
--> Result:
--> (vim.fault.InvalidLogin) {
--> faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
--> msg = ""
--> }
--> Args:
-->
--> Arg userName:
--> "BEAR\lee.croucher"
--> Arg locale:
-->
2024-03-25T17:31:05.965Z info vpxd[04240] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=6a70d9aa] [VpxLRO] -- BEGIN task-internal-1846008 -- SessionManager -- vim.SessionManager.logout -- 52a1af2a-ee6e-aa49-ebe4-ad9a9217e435(52e9e52f-4578-3efe-47a5-d2cc3cd8a0de)
2024-03-25T17:31:05.966Z info vpxd[04240] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=6a70d9aa] [VpxLRO] -- FINISH task-internal-1846008
The services could not talk to port 443 on the server, which means no one could login as communications could not be made and when you check the services on that server it would appear some services are not running......
The reverse proxy in VMware is the service that handles this part of the login process so with this stopped there we no logins available until the service was restarted, once it is restarted you need to give it some time to fully start its services properly.
The cause of the issue - a service was stopped that was essential to the working on vCentre.