vCenter 5.1 SSO few known installation issues & suggestions

• 1. Installing vCenter Single Sign On fails with the error: Error 20010: Failed to configure LookupService

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2036497

• vCenter Single Sign On installer reports the error: Error 29155.Identity source discovery error. 

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2034374
also try some known issues here

http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-esx-vcenter-server-51-release-notes.html

• "Error 20010.Failed to configure LookupService" error.

managed to overcome this by creating a single user for RSA database (after executing the createtablespace script).

This user was given db_owner permissions and sysadmin (temporarily) as the installation doc suggests

• Don't use anything except dots in your admin password as special character and IT WILL WORK
• If you have the word PORT in any part of your domain name or fqdn for vcenter the installer will throw errors!!! 
• If you have hyphern "-" in any part of your domain name or fqdn for vcenter the installer will throw errors!!! 
• try changing the name to an fqdn name.
• pre-create the tablespace and the users (RSA_DBA and RSA_USER) and let the SSO installation create the tables and schemas during installation

http://communities.vmware.com/message/2132316

Host Disconnected from vcenter server

Issue: Host Disconnected from the vCenter server and you might have already referred the following

kb.vmware.com/kb/1003409

What solved it : Check for any VM whether it has snapshots in that host and if it has snapshots.

If removing that VM from the host's inventory is letting the host stay connected in the vCenter server then the VM is the cause.

If VMs in that host has snapshots then connect directly to the host using a vSphere client and consolidate them through the GUI or CLI.

If the snapshot consolidation takes a long time and you don’t want the host to be in a disconnected state till then you can remove the VM from the inventory and bring the host back on and consolidate the snapshots of the VM from a different host through GUI or CLI.

The above can also be used if the vCenter server service is not starting and you have already tried the following.
kb.vmware.com/kb/1007669
kb.vmware.com/kb/1003926
connect directly to all the hosts in that cluster and consolidate all the snapshots and try restarting the vcenter server. It has worked on 2 incidents on a customer site.  

VMware Snapshot removal stuck, snapshot helper file in GUI

Problem Description: VMWARE Remove Snapshot on one of our Windows 2008 R2 MS Exchange server has not completed after 8 hours.  It is causing performance issue for our users.

Troubleshooting: No actions other than monitor the progress which is stuck at 95%

Resolution :
snapshot helper file is seen in the snapshot manager gui but no snapshots are visible.
VM edit settings show that the disks are pointing to snapshots
waited for the Helper -7 snapshot to cleanup but it didn't after 10 hours.
connected to the ESXi server, signed in, and restarted the management services which fixed the issues.
The snapshots cleared and the VM was accessibl.

sVMotion VM won't boot after a reboot and becomes corrupt

Issue: When svmotion a VM in your vmware environment to a different array it works fine but after a first reboot it fails to boot or becomes corrupt.

cause: VAAI primitive “Block Zero”

Resolution : Disable only the "Block Zero" (HardwareAcceleratedInit) VAAI. You can leave the ATS and XCOPY enabled.
public advisory

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03571575
how to disable VAAI?

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1033665 

as a solution you might try

https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=T4256-63158

System Chassis 3 Enclosure Status: Controller Access Degraded

Issue: - "System Chassis 3 Enclosure Status: Controller Access Degraded" on one of the host managed by the vcenter server after it being upgraded vcenter 5. It is only visible from the vcenter GUI but there is no other indication of any issue.
additional symptoms:

every 2 mins it gives virtual fan changed from greean to gray and gray to green eventhough all the fans are fine when you check from the enclosure and all the fans are green and okay.
the hp show all report shows no error.

cause and resolution: the fact that it only shows up in the VC gui but no where else and hp SIM (hardmare monitoring tools) report no problem, rebooting the host resolved it.