Cannot write stateless caching image to USB on ESXi 5.1 (Build 914609)

Products

• VMware

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• After Auto Deploy Stateless Caching boots an ESXi host, the Host Profile is applied, but receives a compliance error.
• Host requires reboot before previously applied configuration changes take effect.
• Host does not appear to have a compliant stateless cache.
• In the /var/log/syslog, you see errors similar to:
  
  T13:00:00Z,472 Host Profiles[10286]: ERROR: Exception while updating task config spec. Exception: (LocalizedException) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
msg = <unset>,
faultCause = <unset>,
faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) [
(LocalizableMessageWithPath) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
key = 'com.vmware.vim.profile.caching.NoEligibleDiskEx',
arg = (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) [
(vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
key = 'diskargs',
value = 'usb'
message = u"No eligible disk was found with first-disk arguments: ''usb''."

Cause

This issue occurs when some systems display this compliance error while using vCenter Auto Deploy Stateless Caching and caching to an internal SD/USB card.
The USB Arbitrator service is claiming the SD Card and therefore Auto Deploy / Host Profiles is not able to write to the disk.

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting certain VMware ESXi 5.1.x systems. Currently, there is no resolution.

If you experience this issue, file a support request with VMware Support and note this KB article ID in the problem description. For more information, see Filing a Support Request.

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