After upgrading vCenter to a new version vLCM image based clusters reporting issues with HA

Products

• VMware vCenter Server 7.0
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• Cannot complete the configuration of vSphere HA agent on the host "Setting desired image spec for cluster failed".
  Set solution: General System error occurred: Image is not valid.
• Image Compliance shows the following error:

"vSphere HA" service, running on cluster "CLUSTER_NAME", reported issue:  The HA constraints in the image spec have version whereas the expected version is 8.0.3-24091160

• ESXi hosts attempting to enable HA report the following error:

"Cannot find vSphere HA master agent."

• Disabling and re-enabling HA on the cluster does not fix the issue
  
  

Environment

vCenter Server 7.0.x

vCenter Server 8.0.x

Cause

After a vCenter upgrade, the ImageService must complete depot validations. This can often take 1-2 hours to complete. Before the depot validations are completed the HA depot is unable to be validated/found so the image draft validation fails.

Resolution

Need to wait until depot validation completes and then HA will start to configure and report properly within the cluster