Upgrading or installing ESXi host using stateful auto deploy boot fails to complete with error "cannot be unmounted. Reason: Busy"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• Installing or upgrading ESXi hosts using vSphere Auto Deploy with stateful boot fails with error "cannot be unmounted. Reason: Busy".
• In /var/run/log/syslog.log on the ESXi host the following entries can be found:

  <timestamp> Wa(12) hostprofile[2099609]: opID=MainThread: Core dump file is enabled. Disabling it
  <timestamp> Wa(12) hostprofile[2099609]: opID=MainThread: Shutting off coredump file: 0:True
  <timestamp> In(14) hostprofile[2099609]: opID=MainThread: Now caching to disk: t10.ATA_____#########################________________________###########
  <timestamp> Er(11) hostprofile[2099609]: opID=MainThread: EngineModule::ApplyHostConfig. Exception: ("Errors: \nVolume '########-########-####-############' cannot be unmounted. Reason: Busy\n", b'')

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x
VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

When the chosen system cache partition is in use, it cannot be reformatted/unmounted. The stateful install or system cache fails due to one of the following causes:

1. The partition is used by OSData 
2. A log file is hardcoded to some file path of that partition

Resolution

This issue has been resolved in vCenter Server 8.0 U3e, please patch the vCenter Server to 8.0 Update 3e Build 24674346. 
Reference : VMware vCenter Server 8.0 Update 3e Release Notes 

 

Additional Information

Please refer to the following KB as well : Hostprofile compliance fails with error "Host does not appear to have a compliant stateless cache