Lifecycle Manager Image Deployment to ESXi Shows Error: "Downgrades of manually added Components VMware Tools Async Release(12.x.x) in the desired ESXi version are not supported."

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to deploy an image to ESXi host(s) where a newer version of VMware Tools on the host is newer than included in the image, we get the error

Error: Downgrades of manually added Components VMware Tools Async Release(12.x.x) in the desired ESXi version are not supported."

Resolution

Use these steps to Edit the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Image for the ESXi host and remove the addon package for Tools:

1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to a cluster or host that you manager with a vLCM image.
2. On the Updates tab, select Hosts > Image.
3. In the Image card, click the Edit button.
4. In the Edit Image card, modify the image set-up
5. Remove the add-on from the image by clicking on the Trash icon
6. Validate the image by clicking the Validate button.
7. Click Save

Once saved, attempt the deployment of the image and the host remediation should complete without error.

Additional Information

Steps are in the Edit a vSphere Lifecycle Manager Image section of the following document:
https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/8-0/managing-host-and-cluster-lifecycle-8-0/using-images-to-install-and-update-esxi-hosts-and-clusters/working-with-images.html