Enabling View Composer while configuring vCenter Server in View 5.1 throws the error: “Internal View Composer error. Contact your administrator.”

Problem

You’ve completed the install of a VMware View 5.1 Connection server and began to configure the vCenter Server settings for the environment but receiving the following error when enabling View Composer in the View Composer Settings window:

Internal View Composer error. Contact your administrator.

You’ve verified that you set up the appropriate permissions to the vCenter.

Solution

Although reason why I received this error today was simply a step I missed during the deployment, I noticed that:

1. Searching on the internet didn’t really point me in the right direction
2. The error message doesn’t really tell you much and no events are logged in the event logs

… so I hope this post will help anyone who might make the same mistake as I did. 

The 2 issues I had with the View Composer service account I used was:

#1 – I forgot to add the service account as a local administrator on vCenter:

http://pubs.vmware.com/view-51/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.view.installation.doc%2FGUID-80D653FA-BCC0-45B9-AF84-5E0EEC2AD139.html

#2 – Account was locked out:

Once I added the account to the local administrators group on the vCenter server, I noticed that I still received the error message and after testing the account be logging onto the vCenter server with it, I realized that the account was locked out.  After I unlocked it, the error message went away.

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A bit of a slip on my part but I hope this helps anyone who may have made the same mistake.