Troubleshooting issues when Update Manager is unable to stage patches to an ESX/ESXi host

Products

VMware vCenter Server VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article helps you to troubleshoot issues when Update Manager is unable to stage patches to an ESX/ESXi host.

Symptoms:

Unable to stage patches to an ESX/ESXi host using VMware vCenter Update Manager.
In vCenter Update Manager, you see the error:

Failed to import upgrade. Error was: failed upload

In the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\Update Manager or C:\Users\All Users\VMware\VMware Update Manager\Logs\vmware-vum-server-log4cpp.log, you see entries similar to:

<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time> ['HostUpgradeMetadata' 3456 ERROR] [metadata, 796] Can not read MD5 checksums, error: ios_base::failbit set
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time> ['HostUpgradeMetadata' 3456 ERROR] [metadata, 834] Cannot process MD5 checksums in cosless upgrade package, error: integrity.fault.HostUpgradeChecksumFailure
<YYYY-MM-DD>T<time> ['HostUpgradeMetadata' 3456 ERROR] [metadata, 894] Integrity verification of upgrade package failed.
</time></time></time>
Attempting to run the task may report the error:

Operation failed since another task is in progress

Environment

VMware vCenter Update Manager 1.0.x
VMware vSphere Update Manager 5.0.x
VMware vCenter Update Manager 4.1.x
VMware vSphere Update Manager 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Update Manager 4.0.x
VMware vSphere Update Manager 5.5.x

Resolution

Validate that each troubleshooting step below is true for your environment. The steps provide instructions or a link to a document, for validating the step and taking corrective action as necessary. The steps are ordered in the most appropriate sequence to isolate the issue and identify the proper resolution. Do not skip a step.

Verify that you are applying the correct patch bundle and baseline to the ESX/ESXi host. For more information, see Using the proper upgrade bundle when upgrading an ESX/ESXi 4.x host to a newer version (1020673).
Ensure that name resolution is working correctly between all ESX/ESXi hosts and your vCenter/Update Manager server. For more information, see Identifying issues with and setting up name resolution on ESX Server (1003735).
Verify that network connectivity exists between the Update Manager server and the ESX//ESXi host you are trying to stage. For more information, see Cannot connect to the remote server when downloading the Update Manager or Converter plugins (1004887).
Verify that your ESX host has the required disk space to perform operations on the host. For more information, see Investigating disk space on an ESX host (1003564).
When a virtual machine is inaccessible from vCenter Server or is connected directly to the ESX/ESXi host using the vSphere Client, Update Manager fails because it cannot verify the power status of the virtual machine and, therefore, cannot put the host into Maintenance Mode. To troubleshoot this issue, see Assessing commonalities of an outage affecting multiple virtual machines (1019000).
Ensure that the network connecting Update Manager and the ESX/ESXi host is not slow. The network speed may be slow if the host or Update Manager is across a long distance WAN. For more information, see vCenter Update Manager host tasks might fail in slow networks (1021050).
If you are applying multiple updates at once, the multiple tasks may take a long time to complete. To troubleshoot this issue, see vCenter operation times out with the error: Operation failed since another task is in progress (1004790).

If the issue continues to exist after performing the steps in this article:

Collect the VMware Support information. For more information, see Collecting diagnostic information for VMware products (1008524) for ESX/ESXi and Update Manager.
File a support request with VMware Support and quote this Knowledge Base article ID (1032625) in the problem description. For more information, see How to Submit a Support Request.

Additional Information

Investigating disk space on an ESX or ESXi host
Identifying issues with and setting up name resolution on ESX/ESXi Server
Collecting diagnostic information for VMware Fusion
vCenter operation times out with the error: Operation failed since another task is in progress
Cannot connect to the remote server when downloading the vCenter Update Manager or Converter plugins
Collecting diagnostic information for VMware products
Assessing commonalities of an outage affecting multiple virtual machines
Using the proper upgrade bundle when upgrading an ESX/ESXi 4.x host to a newer version
vCenter Update Manager host tasks might fail in slow networks