Broadcom Emulex cards not detected after ESXi upgrade to 7.0 U3

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

After upgrading ESXi hosts to 7.0 U3, the Emulex FC cards are not detected.

 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

Cause

The adapter models have gone end of life and are no longer supported on the latest software releases(As per Broadcom document).

 

The following HBA models have gone End of Support and are deprecated in the 14.0.x.x drivers (For OCe14000-series VMware 7.0 U3 inbox driver will be 12.0.1500.2)

 

Emulex LPe12000-series 8Gb/s PCIe 2.0 FC HBA

Emulex LPe16000-series 16Gb/s PCIe 2.0 FC HBA

Emulex OCe14000-series 10GbE FCoE Adapter

 

https://www.broadcom.com/support/knowledgebase/3211238682009/broadcom-emulex-end-of-life-hba-models-not-detected-with-14.0.x.x-and-later-drivers

Resolution

• Upgrade to 16Gb/s LPe31000-series or 32Gb/s LPe32000-series PCIe 3.0 FC HBA or newer Emulex FC HBA
• There is no upgrade path for the OCE14000 10GbE FCoE Adapter

 

Workaround:

Install the compatible 12.8.x.x drivers for version 7.0 U3 according to VMware HCL - Requires ESXi reboot after installation.

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:

After the upgrade, the HBA cards will not be detected under the "Storage Adapters" page.

As a result, the datastores will be inaccessible.