Today I just ran into a small little issue trying to re-export a virtual machine from vSphere on premises back to vCloud Air. The interesting thing that I discovered with some help was this is caused by old vCloud data in the vApp configuration. This problem happens when you do export a virtual machine from vCloud Director to vCenter then BACK to vCloud Director using the OVF process. This is in fact exactly what I did because I wanted the machine from vCloud Air used on premises as well.
What happens is that the original OVF export from vCloud Director is that it includes vCloud Director Extensions in the OVF file. When that is imported into vCenter those extensions are ignored, but they are left there preserved. When it is then re-exported from vCenter the OVF will include the original extensions whose values will not match the vCloud Director it is going back to. From vCloud Director’s perspective, the OVF is not valid.
The good news is there is an EASY fix so you can re-export the machine back to vCloud Director.
- Select the node corresponding to the VM
- Right click and select menu item “Edit Settings…”
- Select the tab “vApp Options”
- Unselect the checkbox “Enable vApp options”
The UI will probably ask you to confirm the operation and that is fine. If you are curious, before unchecking the checkbox (step 4), you can expand the “Unrecognized OVF sections” category and you will see all the vCloud Director special elements causing the issue. Now you should be able to export the OVF and import it back into vCloud Director with no issue!