The host returns "esxupdate error code:99" error on ESXi host 6.x when staging patches

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• On the Update Manager, you see this error:

The host returns esxupdate error code:99. An unhandled exception was encountered. Check the Update Manager log files and esxupdate log files for more details.

• In the /var/log/esxupdate.log file, you see entries similar to:

esxupdate: Metadata.pyc: INFO: Unrecognized file vendor-index.xml in Metadata file

esxupdate: esxupdate: ERROR: An unexpected exception was caught:^@

esxupdate: esxupdate: ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last):^@

esxupdate: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/usr/sbin/esxupdate", line 238, in main^@

esxupdate: esxupdate: ERROR: cmd.Run()^@

esxupdate: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/build/mts/release/bora-4510822/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vmware/esx5update/Cmdline.py", line 113, in Run^@

esxupdate: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/build/mts/release/bora-4510822/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vmware/esx5update/MetadataScanner.py", line 244, in Scan^@

esxupdate: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/build/mts/release/bora-4510822/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vmware/esx5update/MetadataScanner.py", line 106, in _generateOperationData^@

esxupdate: esxupdate: ERROR: File "/build/mts/release/bora-4510822/bora/build/esx/release/vmvisor/sys-boot/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vmware/esx5update/MetadataScanner.py", line 88, in _getInstallProfile^@

esxupdate: esxupdate: ERROR: AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'Copy'^@

esxupdate: esxupdate: DEBUG: <<<^@

Environment

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.5.x

Resolution

To validate the issue, run below commands:

esxcli software profile get

Faulty Host would return output as:

Exception

No host image profile defined

Please refer to the log file for more details.

 

Output of ls -l /var/db/esximg/* would be 0.

To Resolve the issue:

1. Copy the missing files from working host using SCP.
2. Run this command for SCP to work:
   
   esxcli network firewall ruleset set --enabled true --ruleset-id=sshClient
    
3. Copy all files under /var/db/esximg/ from working host to the faulty host.

Note: The vibs need to be taken from a host of the same build. In the event that no additional hosts of the same build are available, a nested ESXi deployment can be used to deploy a host of the same build in order to obtain the required files. 

Additional Information

"esxupdate error code 15" error after patching an ESXi host
Resolution: "esxupdate error codes: -1. Check the Update Manager log files and esxupdate log files for more details."
简体中文：转储修补程序时，主机在 ESXi 主机 6.x 上返回 esxupdate 错误代码：99" 错误