JSON NoneType Error Produced During Onboard Operation

While helping a customer install ("onboard") the Arc Resource Bridge for AVS, we're getting the error below.

FYI, the subscriptionId, resourceGroup, privateCloud, isStatic, staticIpNetworkDetails, and applianceCredentials properties and objects have all been supplied in the JSON file. When executing run.ps1, the value for the username is seen in the console, so we know it's a valid JSON file (also verified syntax in VS Code). The customer is using the most recent source / scripts, too; they downloaded the .zip archive today and we executed run.ps1 shortly after.

A support ticket has been opened, as well. Do you have any insights to this?

```shell
2026-01-27 11:30:49,136 root

ERROR

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\temp\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\src\appliance_setup\run.py", line 139, in
_customer_details = avs_orchestrator.orchestrate(config)
File "C:\temp\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\src\appliance_setup\avs\_avs_orchestrator.py",
line 33, in orchestrate

customer_details: CustomerDetails = self.data_collector.collect_data(customer_res, config)
File "C:\temp\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\src\appliance_setup\avs\avsarconboarder\collector \_DataCollector.py", line 33, in collect_data
vsphere_resource = self ._ vsphere_resource_retriever.retrieve_data(cloud_details, customer_credentials)
File "C:\temp\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\src\appliance_setup\avs\avsarconboarder\retriever\vsphere\vsphere_details_retriever.py", line 99, in retrieve_data
data_store, cluster_name_path = self ._ retrieve_environment_details()
File "C:\temp\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\src\appliance_setup\avs\avsarconboarder\retriever\vsphere\vsphere_details_retriever.py", line 69, in _retrieve_environment_details
data_stores = self. retrieve_data_stores()
File "C:\temp\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\ArcOnAVS-2.0.27\src\appliance_setup\avs\avsarconboarder\retriever\vsphere\vsphere_details_retriever.py", line 37, in _retrieve_data_stores
res = json. loads(res)
File "json\ __ init __. py", line 339, in loads
TypeError: the JSON object must be str, bytes or bytearray, not NoneType
onboard operation failed! Please check stderr or equivalent for more details.
```