Error: "VM faults in EMM dry run" after precheck fail on hosts with Zerto VMs

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation
• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

• Patching/upgrading ESXi host via SDDC fails at precheck upgrade on environments with Zerto VMs fail at entering Maintenance Mode (MM)
• Full error:
  • Description: Checks for VM faults while performing EMM dry run for host <hostName>
  • Error Description: A VM faults were found while performing a dry run enter in maintenance mode validation.
  • Impact: High: Do not perform upgrade without addressing this issue.
  • Remediation: Remediation: Virtual machine '<vmName>' on host '<hostName>' would violate a virtual machine - host affinity rule

Environment

• VCF: 4.x, 5.x, 9.0
• Ops, vRA: 9.0

Cause

• The Zerto VMs must be powered off to allow the upgrade to successfully complete.
• Disabling the dry run pre check, using the steps from the "ENTER MAINTENANCE DRYRUN CHECK" Precheck fails with "Error: Error during enter MAINTENANCE check due to InsufficientResourcesFault" KB, will allow the precheck to succeed but the upgrade will fail during the Install stage.

Resolution

For ESXi upgrades to succeed, the Zerto VMs must be powered off.

1. How to Prepare to Power Off a Site with Zerto Virtual Replication Installed

2. Once the nodes are down, proceed with the upgrade and power them back on once done. 

Note: Reach out to Zerto support if there are any questions concerning the power off procedure.