Base Image and Components are not present after upgrading using esxcli software profile update

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• After upgrading ESXi 6.5 or 6.7 GA to 7.0, running esxcli software profile update displays no component and baseimage information.
• Running these commands will not return anything:
  • esxcli software component list
  • esxcli software component get
  • esxcli software baseimage get
• When attempting to Convert to a vSphere Lifecycle Manager Image-managed cluster, you observe that your VIBs are being identified as standalone VIBs
• When adding these ESXi hosts to a vSphere Lifecycle Manager image-managed cluster, you observe that your VIBs are being identified as standalone VIBs
• You observe the following warnings when using vSphere Lifecycle Manager Image clusters:

Identified standalone vib vib_name on the following hosts host_name. Review the compliance details and ensure no warnings about this vib is present

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5

Cause

This is an expected behavior when performing an upgrade when performing an upgrade from ESXi 6.5 or 6.7 GA using the esxcli software profile update command.

ESXi 6.7 update 1 and later employ a new upgrade mechanism in esxcli that allows installation of Base Image and component metadata.

Resolution

There is no resolution.

Workaround:

To work around this issue, perform one of the following:

• A two-step upgrade, for example:
  • ESXi 6.5 U3 -> ESXi 6.7 U1 -> ESXi 7.0b
  • ESXi 6.5 U3 -> ESXi 7.0 -> ESXi 7.0b
• Upgrading by manual ISO or vLCM ISO upgrade.
• Add the ESXi host to a vSphere Lifecycle Manager Image-managed Cluster and remediate the ESXi hosts. This will update the metadata on the VIBs.