Error: "Cannot find vSphere HA master agent" 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

• Recent Tasks in vCenter show one or more of the following errors:
  
  Cannot complete the configuration of vSphere HA agent on the host "Setting desired image spec for cluster failed".

A general system error occurred: Setting solution for image failed.
  
  
• 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 #.#.#-########

• 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

• VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x
• VMware 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

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