During the NSX upgrade, I ran into an issue where the "repo_sync" failed on the NSX Managers, resulting in an incomplete repository synchronization. After consulting VMware’s official documentation, I decided to try my own solution.
I connected to the NSX Manager via SFTP and discovered that the repository contents on one of the NSX Managers were not correctly synced. I copied the repository contents from a working NSX Manager to the failing NSX Manager.
After copying, I noticed that the file permissions were not aligned with the expected defaults. To ensure proper access, I manually adjusted the permissions of the synchronized repository files and directories to match those on the working NSX Manager.
Example commands used:
# Compare permissions on the working NSX Manager
ls -l /repository
# Adjust ownership to match the working node (typically uuc:grepodir)
chown -R uuc:grepodir /repository/<version>
# Ensure directory permissions are set correctly
chmod -R 770 /repository/<version
Finally, I executed the "resolve" option on the failed NSX Manager, which successfully fixed the issue.
On the working NSX Manager, there were two directories in the /repository folder:
- 4.2.0.2.0.24278654
- 4.2.3.0.0.24866349
There was also a file called current_version, which contained the text specifying the current version, in this case:
4.2.0.2.0.24278654
VMware Solution: Repo_Sync Status Fails on NSX Managers During Upgrade Pre-checks
Article ID: 392736
Last Updated: 06-27-2025
The NSX Manager upgrade pre-check fails with the following error on the NSX GUI:
"Failed to execute check for the version sync status of UC on all the MP nodes."
Additionally, the "Repository sync is not complete on all 3 NSX Managers" error appears on the NSX GUI.
Log snippets in var/log/nsxapi.log show errors similar to the following:
####-##-##T##:##:##.### INFO http-nio-127.0.0.1-7440-exec-10 RepositoryServiceImpl 4598 SYSTEM [nsx@6876 comp="nsx-manager" level="INFO" reqId="########-####-####-####-###########" subcomp="manager" username="uproton"] Repo-sync status for <IP of node> node is FAILED.
-
NSX Version: 4.1.0.2
When upgrading NSX Managers from one version to another, the /repository folder on the Orchestrator node should contain both the current (from) version and the target (to) version directories. For example, when upgrading from 4.1.0.2 to 4.2.1.3, the /repository folder should contain both 4.1.0.2 and 4.2.1.3 directories.
VMware recommends following the KB steps to resolve the issue:
-
After replacing NSX Managers or during upgrade pre-checks, if the repo_sync fails, deploy both MUB files into the
/repositoryfolder of the Orchestrator node. -
Once the repo_sync is successful on the Orchestrator node, click Resolve for repo_sync on the other two NSX Managers in the NSX GUI to sync the
/repositoryfolder across all nodes.
-
Related KBs:
By following the official VMware solution or the manual synchronization method I discovered, you can resolve the "repo_sync" failure issue during the NSX Manager upgrade process.
