When a Passive node does not become the Active node during a failover, you can force the Passive node to become the Active node.

Problem

The Passive node fails while trying to assume the role of the Active node.

Cause

A vCenter HA failover might not succeed for these reasons.
  • The Witness node becomes unavailable while the Passive node is trying to assume the role of the Active node.
  • An appliance state synchronization issue between the nodes exists.

Solution

You recover from this issue as follows.
  1. If the Active node recovers from the failure, it becomes the Active node again.
  2. If the Witness node recovers from the failure, follow these steps.
    1. Log in to the Passive node through the Virtual Machine Console.
    2. To enable the Bash shell, enter shell at the appliancesh prompt.
    3. Run the following command. 
      vcha-reset-primary
    4. Reboot the Passive node.
  3. If both Active node and Witness node cannot recover, you can force the Passive node to become a standalone vCenter Server Appliance.
    1. Delete the Active node and Witness node virtual machines.
    2. Log in to the Passive node through the Virtual Machine Console.
    3. To enable the Bash shell, enter shell at the appliancesh prompt.
    4. Run the following command. 
      destroy-vcha
    5. Reboot the Passive node.