vCenter Appliance Update Buttons Greyed Out

Although the following process in itself will not enable those buttons directly again, it will allow you to perform an update of the appliance from a command line… which should enable those buttons again after the update is completed.  This method should also only be performed for a minor update to the appliance… I’ll write a slightly different post on the process to upgrade to a major release:

• Download the minor release that you wish to upgrade to, as an ISO
• Mount the ISO to the console of the vCenter Appliance
• Log onto the web interface of the vCenter Appliance:   https://webaddress:5480/
• Switch to the ‘Update’ tab and then click the ‘Settings’ button
• Make sure that the ‘Use CDROM Updates’ option is selected and click ‘Save Settings’
• Using Putty, connect to the vCenter Appliance (using the root username and password previously used for the web interface)
• Type:

  /opt/vmware/bin/vamicli update --check

• You should now see an update similar to below:
  
• Next type:

  /opt/vmware/bin/vamicli update --install latest --accepteula

• This will now present you with a screen similar to below:
  

This update will actually now take approximately 20 minutes to complete, the appliance will then reboot and you should then be presented with the new version.

Please note that you should log back onto the appliance and perform a reboot of it before the new version takes effect.