Update Manager fails with error: There are errors during the remediation operation

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Patching using Update Manager fails
• Upgrading an ESX 3.5 host to ESX 4.x using Update Manager fails.
• You see the error:
  
  There are errors during the remediation operation
  
  
• Upgrading using the Host Update utility is successful. However, using Update Manager to then apply patches to the ESX 4.0 host fails. The staging process also fails.
• The logs contain entries similar to:
  
  [2009-09-14 17:38:58.171 03124 verbose 'App'] [Vpxd2DrmNotifications] VpxdDrmProcessVmStateChange - vm "unknown (1)"
  [2009-09-14 17:38:58.171 03124 verbose 'App'] [Vpxd2DrmNotifications] VpxdDrmProcessVmPowerStateChange - vm : unknown (1)
  
  
• T he vmware-vum-server-log4cpp.log file (located in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\Update Manager or C:\Users\All Users\VMware\VMware Update Manager\Logs) reports an error similar to:
  
  [2010-04-09 08:50:19:892 'ChainedTaskContainer.ChainedTaskContainer{9}' 5028 ERROR] [singleHostContainerTask, 268] SingleHostContainerTask { host:(<hostname>) }: encountered error: vim.fault.NoHost

update-manager-fails-remediation

Environment

VMware vCenter Update Manager 1.0.x
VMware vCenter Update Manager 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Update Manager 4.1.x

Resolution

VMware Update Manager confirms the power state of the virtual machines before it remediates the host. This issue occurs if Update Manager cannot determine the state of one or more virtual machines on the host. This problem can occur if there are virtual machines that are listed as inaccessible, orphaned or invalid in the vCenter Server inventory.

To workaround this issue, unregister the invalid virtual machines and retry the update or upgrade. For more information on troubleshooting an invalid, orphaned or inaccessible virtual machine, see Troubleshooting a virtual machine that appears as invalid (1002367) and Virtual machines appear as invalid or orphaned in vCenter Server (1003742).

Note: The log error vim.fault.NoHost indicates that vCenter Server could not find the host for the virtual machines that experience the error. The VMware Update Manager API call from is GetVmPowerState(), which results in the error Vim::Fault::NoHost if a virtual machine is not connected.