Creating a standard portgroups on an ESXi host via vCenter / ESXi GUI fails with error message "Failed to create port group <port group name>"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

Issue/Introduction

• Creating a standard portgroups on an ESXi host via vCenter / ESXi GUI fails with below error message: 
  

  "Failed to create port group <port group name>"

• Issue is seen while creating a portgroup on any vSwitch in that host.
• Creating a portgroup from CLI works as expected.
• Logs similar to below is seen in /var/log/hostd.log of the host.

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.###Z info hostd[2100966] [Originator@6876 sub=Hostsvc opID=#####-####-361 user=root] Invalid network policy: there are unset properties in network security policy.
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.###Z info hostd[2100966] [Originator@6876 sub=Hostsvc.NetworkVmkSimulator opID=#####-####-361 user=root] Cannot set policy for vswitch [########-##-###-#-####], network policy is invalid: (vim.host.NetworkPolicy) {
-->    security = (vim.host.NetworkPolicy.SecurityPolicy) {
-->    },
-->    nicTeaming = (vim.host.NetworkPolicy.NicTeamingPolicy) {
-->       failureCriteria = (vim.host.NetworkPolicy.NicFailureCriteria) {
-->       },
-->    },
-->    offloadPolicy = (vim.host.NetOffloadCapabilities) {
-->    },
-->    shapingPolicy = (vim.host.NetworkPolicy.TrafficShapingPolicy) {
-->    }
--> }.
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.###Z info hostd[2100966] [Originator@6876 sub=Hostsvc opID=#####-####-c361 user=root] Simulate failed
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.###Z info hostd[2100966] [Originator@6876 sub=AdapterServer opID=#####-####-c361 user=root] AdapterServer caught exception; <<#######-####-####-####-############, <TCP '127.0.0.1 : 8307'>, <TCP '127.0.0.1 : 29749'>>, networkSystem, vim.host.NetworkSystem.updateNetworkConfig>, N5Vmomi5Fault15InvalidArgument9ExceptionE(Fault cause: vmodl.fault.InvalidArgument
--> )
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.###Z info hostd[2100966] [Originator@6876 sub=Vimsvc.TaskManager opID=#####-####-c361 user=root] Task Completed : haTask-ha-host-vim.host.NetworkSystem.updateNetworkConfig-105750 Status error
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.###Z info hostd[2100966] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=#####-####-c361 user=root] Activation finished; <<########-####-####-####-############, <TCP '127.0.0.1 : 8307'>, <TCP '127.0.0.1 : 29749'>>, networkSystem, vim.host.NetworkSystem.updateNetworkConfig>
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.###Z verbose hostd[2100966] [Originator@6876 sub=Solo.Vmomi opID=#####-####-c361 user=root] Arg config:
--> (vim.host.NetworkConfig) {
-->    portgroup = (vim.host.PortGroup.Config) [
-->       (vim.host.PortGroup.Config) {
-->          changeOperation = "add",
-->          spec = (vim.host.PortGroup.Specification) {
-->             name = "####-######_######",
-->             vlanId = ###,
-->             vswitchName = "####-##-####-#-####",
-->             policy = (vim.host.NetworkPolicy) {
-->                security = (vim.host.NetworkPolicy.SecurityPolicy) {
-->                   allowPromiscuous = true,
-->                   macChanges = true,
-->                   forgedTransmits = true
-->                },
-->             }
-->          }
-->       }
-->    ],
--> }

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

Cause

• Host has a Virtual Standard Switch name with special characters like ' ? / \ * ' .
• There is a bug in ESXi's code in handling a host with a Virtual Standard Switch with special characters in its name.

Resolution

• It is a known issue on ESXi 7.0.3.
• To resolve the issue, you can remove the Virtual Standard Switch which has a special character in its name by migrating all the VMs to newly created VSS without any such special characters.
• If removing such vSwitch is not possible, contact Broadcom support.
• Broadcom will provide a script to rename the existing vSwitch without any special characters. 
  
  

Additional Information

Access to the Broadcom-provided migration script for Product Version 7.x is contingent upon having an existing Extended Support entitlement, as this product version has officially reached End-of-Life (EOL) and is no longer generally supported.