Enter Maintenance Mode operation on ESXi host fails with error "The object 'vim.VirtualMachine:vm-xxxxxxx' has already been deleted or has not been completely created"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Entering ESXi host in Maintenance Mode fails with error message "The object 'vim.VirtualMachine:vm-xxxxxxx' has already been deleted or has not been completely created"

• VPXD log file /var/log/vmware/vpxd/vpxd.log will show errors similar to below snippet :

2022-11-28T13:47:17.502Z info vpxd[07196] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=laog3py7-3172334-auto-1vzsf-h5:70369778-28] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-3247011 -- host-100 -- vim.HostSystem.enterMaintenanceMode: vmodl.fault.ManagedObjectNotFound:
--> Result:
--> (vmodl.fault.ManagedObjectNotFound) {
-->    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
-->    faultMessage = <unset>,
-->    obj = 'vim.VirtualMachine:a6bc6512-6734-343c-e577-52434cf3eba43:vm-1167897'

Environment

VMware vSphere 7.0.x

Cause

It was found that these failures were occurring when delete operations were requested against Virtual Machines after the maintenance mode operation had been initiated on the ESXi host.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in VMware vCenter Server 7.0 U3l, available at VMware Downloads.

Workaround:

Retry the Maintenance Mode operation on the ESXi host to workaround this issue.