Unable to view USB Device in the available devices for passthrough in ESXi 6.5

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• An USB device that is connected to the ESXi server through external hubs cannot be connected to the VM if there are more than 4 levels between the device and the server.
• An USB device can be seen on the ESXi host but unable to connect it to the VM.
• The device is not seen on the “Removable device” list of the VM.

Cause

This issue occurs if the USB device is connected to the ESXi server through too many layers of external hubs. The number of external hubs supported is limited to 4.
The support for the number of levels of cascading external hubs is decreased by one in order to keep USB path backward compatible with vSphere 6.0

Resolution

To resolve this issue, remove a layer of hubs by performing one of the below:

1.    Connect the USB device directly to an USB port on the machine.
2.    If the USB device is connected to the ESXi host through external cascading hubs, remove one hub and try again