• This is an awareness article where upgrade from 7.0U2a to 7.0U3 using rollup patch baseline will fail
  Environments 
• Environments upgraded host to 7.0 U3 from 7.0U2 (using rollup patch baseline), will not be able to import image (HostSeeding) from that host to desired image based cluster.
• During Baseline-Image managed cluster (where hosts are upgraded from 70u2 to 70u3 using rollup baseline upgrade) to Desired-Image managed cluster transition, there is one additional remediation to be performed

• Rollup upgrade of ESXi hosts with patch baselines from ESXi 7.0 Update 2a to ESXi 7.0 Update 3 fails
• "VMware vSphere Update Manager had an unknown error"
• On vCenter UI the error message reported :- "host returned esxupdate code -1"
  
  esxupdate.log reported this exception:
  2021-08-27T14:11:56Z esxupdate: 2102510: Ramdisk: INFO: Unmounting manual tardisk /tardisks.noauto/weaselin-2102510
  2021-08-27T14:11:56Z esxupdate: 2102510: esxupdate: ERROR: An esxupdate error exception was caught:
  2021-08-27T14:11:56Z esxupdate: 2102510: esxupdate: ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last):
  2021-08-27T14:11:56Z esxupdate: 2102510: esxupdate: ERROR:   File "/usr/sbin/esxupdate", line 216, in main
  2021-08-27T14:11:56Z esxupdate: 2102510: esxupdate: ERROR:     cmd.Run()
  2021-08-27T14:11:56Z esxupdate: 2102510: esxupdate: ERROR:   File /lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esx5update/Cmdline.py, line 153, in Run
  2021-08-27T14:11:56Z esxupdate: 2102510: esxupdate: ERROR:   File /tmp/esx-update-2102510/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py, line 962, in InstallVibsFromSources
  2021-08-27T14:11:56Z esxupdate: 2102510: esxupdate: ERROR:   File /tmp/esx-update-2102510/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py, line 928, in checkBaseImageUpgrade
  2021-08-27T14:11:56Z esxupdate: 2102510: esxupdate: ERROR: esximage.Errors.InstallationError: This upgrade transaction would skip ESXi Base Image VIB(s) VMW_bootbank_i40en_1.11.1.31-1vmw.703.0.0.49537716, which could cause failures post upgrade. Please use an alternative upgrade method that would install the above VIB(s). For example, use an image profile instead of VIBs to perform the upgrade.
  2021-08-27T14:11:56Z esxupdate: 2102510: esxupdate: DEBUG: <<<
• Import Image from an upgraded host (where upgrade was done from 70u2, using 70u3 rollup patch baseline) may fail with the following error
• "An error occurred while extracting image info on the host" ESXi  /var/log/lifecycle.log will show below message 

• Baseline-Image managed cluster to Desired-Image managed cluster transition would result into non-compliant state.
• ISO-based upgrade to ESXi 7.0 Update 3 fails

• On vCenter UI error is reported: "Cannot run upgrade script on host". 
• One of /var/log/vua-*.log on host shows error: 

• On 7.0 Update 2c patched via patch baseline from vendor Image 7.0 Update 2a, HA cannot be enabled/configured 
  • On vCenter UI error is reported: "Sphere HA agent for this host has an error: The vSphere HA agent is not reachable from the vCenter Server" 
  • /var/run/log/esxupdate.log of impacted host shows: 

• Remediate patch baseline to 7.0 Update 2c/2d or subsequent Update 2 patch failed 
  • On vCenter UI the error message reported is: "host returned esxupdate code -1" 
  • /var/run/log/esxupdate.log of impacted host reported this exception: 

• Starting with vSphere 7.0 Update 3, the inbox i40enu network driver for ESXi changes name back to i40en.
• The i40en driver was renamed to i40enu in vSphere 7.0 Update 2
• The name change impacted rollup upgrade path, where on impacted workflow i40enu would not be replaced by i40en, which causes errors for import image (host seeding) and Baseline Image managed cluster to Desired Image managed cluster transition workflows

• Prior to upgrade, check if i40enu vib is present on the host

• If i40enu vib is present, check if there are two Intel-i40en components exist on the host  

# esxcli software component get | grep Intel-i40en -A15
Workaround - 1:

• Run both the steps from pre-check section above,
• If two Intel-i40en components are found on ESXi host, one with i40enu vib, use following workaround steps on the impacted hosts
  • Remove i40enu driver vib with the below command 
    • #esxcli software vib remove -n i40enu 
  • Reboot the host 
    • #reboot
  • Above workaround will help in resolving: Enabling HA issue explained in the KB :- 86191
  • Now you can attempt enabling HA and it should succeed
  • Upgrade issue to 7.0 Update 3
    • Now you can proceed with upgrade to 7.0 Update 3 and it should succeed
  • Reboot the host once the upgrade to 7.0 U3 is completed with the below command  
    • #reboot

• Run both the steps from pre-check section above,
• If only one Intel-i40en component found with i40enu vib and ESXi host is currently running ESXi 7.0 Update 2a build, use one of the following alternative ways to upgrade to U3, such as
  • ISO upgrade baseline,  
  • esxcli profile, or  
  • Migrate to image-managed cluster and perform upgrade
• Alternately 
  • Use patch baseline to apply 7.0 Update 2c first, before upgrading to 7.0 Update 3

 Workaround - 3:

• Run both the steps from pre-check section above,
• If you are running into upgrade failures during upgrade attempt to 7.0 Update 2c/ 7.0 Update 2d, it is recommended to upgrade to 7.0 Update 3 directly using ISO upgrade baseline
  • If you are attempting to upgrade using patching baseline/rollup upgrade, you need to apply workaround-1 or workaround-2 based on the i40enu vib presence and number of Intel-i40en components found with pre-check steps