I have a very simple environment using a vSphere Essentials kit with three ESXi hosts and a vCenter appliance running as a VM on one of the hosts.
The appliance version 5.1.0.20001. All hosts are 5.1 U2.
In general, I don't like vCenter for this small of an environment. The centralized manage benefits are minimal and I have found it considerably easier and faster to manage the environment using the vSphere Client, but because the client will no longer be fully supported for 5.5 onward, I am trying to get used to managing through vCenter.
I have consistently had problems with having what is reflected in vCenter not being what is actually on the host configuration. In the past, I have just "started over" several times by just removing the hosts from inventory in vCenter and wiping the database and re-adding the hosts. But a big deal with only a couple of hosts. But annoying.
I have up till now chalked all this up to my own fault because I frequently get frustrated with the clunkiness of the web client and just log in with the vSphere client and work from there.
Since the last time I removed the hosts from inventory, erased the database and re-added the hosts however, I have been very disciplined about only using the web client.
I now find myself once again stuck with the web client not reflecting changes to the host.
I added a new VM through the web client the other day - it was created successfully, but never showed up in the list of VMs. I logged out and logged back in - not there. I tried a different browser and flushed the cache - not there. I disconnected and re-connected the host - not there. I finally logged in with the vSphere client, which I had been avoiding doing - the VM is listed there.
Now I'm totally stuck. How do I get the stupid web client to see the VM that IT created?
I suppose I can remove the host from inventory and re-add it, but I really would prefer to figure out what is wrong. Removing hosts and re-adding them has implications for the backup appliance that is just messy and it really seems like something as basic as adding a VM should "just work" everytime.