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Removing an existing vRA License


Came across a situation where even though the product was licensed , it was stating that it's not found in the database.

Re-applying same license was not working and it was stating that it's invalid

While going through /var/log/vmware/vcac/catalina.log found that there jdbc connection errors while trying to access database entry where licensed assets were present. Also, /var/log/vmware/messages was clearly stating that the license is missing or not found

Follow below steps to delete an existing license in vRA

** Before Attempting these steps take a snapshot and a valid backup of vRA database ( vPostgres ) **

  1. SSH or putty into the vRealize Automation appliance as root

  2. Take a backup of vRealize Automation Database

  3. Stop vRealize automation service

  4. service vcac-server stop

  5. Change directory using below command

  6. cd /tmp

  7. Run this command to create a copy of the database in /tmp

  8. su -m -c "/opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/pg_dumpall -c -f /tmp/vcac.sql" postgres

  9. Run this command to compress database

  10. bzip2 -z /tmp/vcac.sql

  11. Connect to vPostgres database

  12. su -postgres psql vcac

  13. Verify if embeddedlicenseentry table is present in database

  14. \dt embeddedlicenseentry



  1. Review how many rows are present inside the table

  2. SELECT * FROM embeddedlicenseentry;

  3. There should be 36 ~ 37 entries

  4. Delete all information from embeddedlicenseentry table

  5. delete FROM embeddedlicenseentry;

  1. Verify if the table is now empty

  2. SELECT * FROM embeddedlicenseentry;

  3. Exit from Database

  4. \q

  5. Restart services on appliance

  6. vcac­vami service­manage stop vco­server vcac­server horizon­workspace elasticsearch

  7. vcac­vami service­manage start vco­server vcac­server horizon­workspace elasticsearch

Once the Services are back , if we go back to VAMI portal , under vRA Settings --> Licensing , you should not see your previous license present


Re-Apply your existing license it should be successful.


For distributed environments

2 vRA appliances scenario:-

Perform database on the Master node , you can get to know the MASTER from vRA Settings --> Database

Restart services on both the nodes

3 vRA appliance scenario:-

Change database to ASYNCHRONOUS mode

Once done , shutdown both the non-MASTER applainces

Since your left only with the MASTER node now , follow same steps as above

Once the key is accepted , bring the other nodes online

Once all services are registered , go ahead and change the database mode to SYNCHRONOUS

Ensure , there are proper backups before performing any of these steps.

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