VCSA migration – “A problem occurred while logging in. Verify the connection details.”

So, I was trying out a Windows vCenter 5.5 to VCSA 6.5 appliance migration and at the stage where I enter the target ESX host name where the appliance will be deployed to I got the above error.

Wasted the better part of my day troubleshooting this as I could find absolutely no mention of what was causing this. The installer log had the following but that didn’t shed much light either.

Tried stuff like 1) try a different ESX host, 2) update it to a later version (it was 5.5 Build 3568722), 3) turn on the ESX Shell and SSH in case that mattered – but nothing helped!

Nothing came up regarding the “vimService creation failed: Error” line either. But then I began Googling on “vimService” and learnt that it is the vSphere Management SDK and that you access the SDK via a URL like https://servername/sdk. That got me thinking whether the VCSA installer looks to the proxy settings of the machine where I am running it from, so I turned off the proxy settings in IE – and that helped!

Who would have thought. :)