• After patching ESXi to 7.0 Update 3 - HA can no longer be successfully enabled

• When trying to enable HA, the installation of the HA agent (FDM) starts, and the status switches into "Waiting for cluster election to complete", only to fail and start over again

• The HA status for the ESXi host is stuck at "Uninitialized"

• In some cases, the HA enablement task fails with "Cannot find vSphere HA master agent"

• Migrating or powering on VMs in an HA enabled cluster fail

• In /var/run/log/esxupdate.log on the ESXi, you find the following entries:

YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last):
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:   File "/usr/lib/vmware/esxcli-software", line 773, in <module>
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:     main()
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:   File "/usr/lib/vmware/esxcli-software", line 764, in main
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:     ret = CMDTABLE[command](options)
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:   File "/usr/lib/vmware/esxcli-software", line 601, in VibInstallCmd
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:     res = t.InstallVibsFromSources(viburls, [], nameids,
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:   File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py", line 965, in InstallVibsFromSources
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:     inst, removed, exitstate = self._installVibs(curprofile,
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:   File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py", line 1207, in _installVibs
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:     hasConfigDowngrade = checkFdmConfigDowngrade(curProfile, newProfile)
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:   File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py", line 1122, in checkFdmConfigDowngrade
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:     compDowngrades = curProfile.GetCompsDowngradeInfo(newProfile)
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:   File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/ImageProfile.py", line 2416, in GetCompsDowngradeInfo
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:     curComp = self.components.GetComponent(name)
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:   File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Bulletin.py", line 1276, in GetComponent
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR:     raise ValueError('Expected 1 component, found %u'
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ esxupdate: 2140874: root: ERROR: ValueError: Expected 1 component, found 2

• This issue occurs when both the i40en and i40enu VIBs for the inbox Intel network driver are installed on the host
• The issue was also reported after upgrading to vCenter 7.0 Update 3b, released on 12th November 2021, which is no longer available.
• In vSphere 7.0 Update 2, the driver was renamed from i40en to i40enu. Starting with vSphere 7.0 Update 3, the inbox i40enu network driver for ESXi changes back to i40en

This issue is resolved in ESXi 7.0 Update 3c.

Workaround:

To work around the issue, remove the conflicting i40enu driver

1. Disable vSphere HA on the cluster with the affected hosts.
2. Put the ESXi in maintenance mode, then run the following command to remove the obsolete i40enu VIB:

   # esxcli software vib remove --vibname=i40enu

3. Once the VIB has been removed, reboot the ESXi host.
4. When this has been done for all hosts in the cluster, HA can be enabled again.

• This issue is can also lead to other problems, e.g. failures when attempting to patch ESXi using Lifecycle Manager, which are described in KB :-vSphere Lifecycle Manager can show non-compliant status after rollup Remediation, new cluster creation or transition from Baseline-managed cluster to Image-managed cluster for few upgrade paths due to i40en/i40enu driver name change.