The OVF package is invalid and cannot be deployed.

While deploying a random OVF image within vSphere I received the following error message: The provided network mapping between OVF networks and the system network is not supported by any host.

DeployOVF-Error

I was minding the fact that I recently installed a new vCenter server and migrated my old vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) settings to this new vCenter by using the export/import function. So I figured that it must have something to do with this change.

When migrating ESXi Hosts using a VDS to a new vCenter Server (disconnect ESXi on the old vCenter and connect to the new one) you will notice that VM’s retain their network connectivity but you will not see any network label (portgroup) attached to the VMs network adapter (i.e. it’s blank).

You can restart the ESXi Management Services to correct this problem or just wait for 30 minutes and then the network label (portgroup) will be visible again.

Now back to the error message around deploying a random OVF package. I tried to restart all Management Agents on the ESXi Hosts but this didn’t solve the problem. Afterwards I restarted the vCenter Appliance and this did solve the problem.

My advise to you would be to try and restart the vCenter Services first, since this will probably already solve the problem. If not than you need to do the ESXi Management Services as well. Unfortunately I cannot easily simulate this scenario again but at least there’s a solution for it.

Leave a comment

1 Comment

  1. Kapil Jha

     /  March 18, 2016

    You Saved my Life, there is nothing on the web that helped.
    Weird by rebooting vCenter Server helped.

    What a waste of 4 hours…..thanks a lot.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: