I was installing a new VUM (Vmware Update Manager) environment like I have numerous times in the past, and came upon this error I have never seen before.

“Setup failed with an unknown error. vCenter credentials could not be validated.”

While researching the error, I found one solution that has helped some, but did NOT help me.

– “Update Manager does not like passwords with weird characters. Try using a password with letter and numbers only”

So I continued to play around with Update Manager and found a fix for me. I had to give vCenter permissions for the user I was trying to use with Update Manager. To do this, I did the following:

– Login to vsphere using username: administrator@vpshere.local with your SSO Password

– Select the Root vCenter Object and then click on the “Permissions” tab. Right click in the white space and select “Add Permissions”

– Click on “Add” in the left box and search for “Domain Admins” under your domain (As well as any other users you want to give permissions to. Then give Administrator privileges on the right hand side box and click OK.

– Now finish installing Update Manager, using an account you just gave permissions to.

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