NSX Uninstallation fails/stuck on ESX host and VIBs cannot be removed.

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

Uninstall of NSX VIBs on ESXi host through del nsx command fails with the following error in /var/log/nsx-syslog.log:

Unable to remove vib on host. java.rmi.RemoteException: [LiveInstallationError] VMware_bootbank_nsx-esx-datapath_4.1.0.0.0-7.0.21236273:Error in running [/etc/init.d/nsx-datapath stop remove]: Return code: 1 Output: stop remove begin Exception:Traceback (most recent call last): File "/etc/init.d/nsx-datapath", line 1995, in <module> UnloadKernelModules(False, True) File "/etc/init.d/nsx-datapath", line 1681, in UnloadKernelModules unloadModule(modName, 'nsxt-vsip' in modName) File "/etc/init.d/nsx-datapath", line 1638, in unloadModule (moduleName, out.decode())) KernelModulesException: Failed to unload module nsxt-kcp-21236273: vmkmod: VMKMod_UnloadModule: Unloading module nsxt-kcp-21236273 failed: Busy (bad0004) Cannot remove module nsxt-kcp-21236273"

Environment

VMware NSX-T Data Center

VMware NSX

Cause

The issue is caused when one or more of the modules com.vmware.nsx.spf, com.vmware.nsx.vdl2, com.vmware.nsx.kcp are loaded and enabled and preventing the NSX VIB's from being removed.

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting VMware NSX

• To resolve the issue, remove the stale entries before re-preparing the host for NSX by following NSX VIBs are not removed from an ESXi host.
• Once the stale entries are removed, you can proceed with re-installing NSX on the affected ESXi host through NSX UI.