Stubborn vCenter 5.5 won't start Fix

To work around this issue, restart the VMware Secure Token Service:

1. Log in as an Administrator to the server that is running vCenter Server.
2. Click Start > Run, enter services.msc, and click OK. The Services window opens.
3. Stop these services:
   
   VMware Secure Token Service
   VMware Identity Management Service
   VMware Certificate Service
   VMware KDC Service
   VMware Directory Service
   
4. Start these services:
   
   VMware Directory Service
   VMware KDC Service
   VMware Certificate ServiceVMware Identity Management Service
   VMware Secure Token ServiceVMware VirtualCenter Server

For more information on the vCenter Server services, see Stopping, starting, or restarting vCenter services (1003895).

For the vCenter Server Appliance:

1. Connect to the vCenter Server Appliance via SSH. For more information, see Enable or Disable SSH Administrator Login on the VMware vCenter Server Appliance section in the VMware vSphere 5.5 vCenter Server and Host Management Guide.
2. Log in as root. 
3. Run this command to restart the VMware Secure Token Service:
   
   /etc/init.d/vmware-stsd restart/etc/init.d/vmware-sts-idmd restart
4. Run this command to restart the vCenter Server services:
   
   service vmware-vpxd restart