vCenter 6.0 Installation : Detecting Client Integration Plugin Timed Out Error!

This is a quick and a simple note to inform you about an issue which could eat up your precious time while deploying vCenter 6.0 or upgrading to vCenter 6.0 from a previous release within an available upgrade path.

I have vCenter 5.5 u2 running in my lab as vCenter Server Virtual Appliance (VCSA). The plan was to upgrade to the new and shiny vCenter 6.0 virtual appliance. If you have not looked into the documentation yet, then I must inform you that the process of upgrade requires you to install the Client Integration Plugin. I will not re-invent the wheel as Vladan Seget has already written a detailed article as to how you can do this upgrade here.

While I was trying to do this upgrade, I ran into an issue where after installing the Integration Client, the upgrade requires you to launch a webpage which is called VCSA-SETUP.HTML located in the setup folder which you extract from the ISO of vCenter 6.0. As soon as you launch this webpage, you are suppose to get a screen which allows you to either install a new VCSA appliance or upgrade the existing version running in your environments.

As soon as I clicked on this html page, the Internet Explorer which is default browser loaded the following page.

Since the client integration plugin was already installed, I clicked on ALLOW as soon as I was asked to provide access to the client integration plugin. Even after doing so the "Detecting Client Integration Plugin.... counter went down to 0sec and then I got this error:

Here you can see that the countdown is completed and the browser has not been able to detect the client integration plugin. I tried a bunch of stuff to resolve this issue:

- Restart the server
- Tried Chrome, IE and Firefox - same issue.
- Cleared browser cookies, cache etc.
- Checked for permissions - NADA

The last thing I did was a google search to check if someone has faced this. To my surprise there was no information around this. Finally I followed the principle of RTFM (Read the F***ING Manual). I jumped tot the release notes and found this in the known issues section. Here is a screenshot from the release notes.

Basically, it boiled down to the proxy settings which was configured incorrectly. As soon as I set them to Automatically detect and re-launch the webpage again, VOILA... I got this screen and was able to go ahead with the upgrade.

Hope this helps...

Happy Upgrading!!


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