DCUI screen goes black upon rebooting the ESXi host

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• DCUI screen goes black upon rebooting the ESXi host post upgrading 7.0.
• Customer is able to see the ESXi host boot process, but once the boot completes, Alt+F2 goes to black screen. However Alt+F1, F11 other options do work.
  
  

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

The DCUI screen is being redirected to a Serial Port.

Resolution

1. Log in to the Web Client and select each ESXi host and click on Configure tab.

2. From left side panel click on System > Advanced System Settings and click on Edit.

3. From the filter look for this Name: Misc.ConsolePort and change the value from COM2 to None.

Additional Information

• Below commands will help if the DCUI is configured with Serial Port COM1 or COM2 
  grep -i Port /etc/vmware/esx.conf
  esxcfg-advcfg -j tty1Port