HBA is missing after ESXi reboot

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

HBA adapter is missing after ESXi host reboot. 

The HBA card is listed under "esxcli hardware pci list" and "lspci", but does not show as present in the UI or under "esxcli core storage adapter list"

Symptoms:

•  Below screenshots shows, Expected HBA's available,
  
  
• Below screenshot has missing adapters,
  
  Note: Missing Adapters - vmhba0 and vmhba1
  
  - 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x

 

Cause

The HBA fails to initialize:

boot log:

2025-02-14T14:25:23.189Z cpu39:2098197)WARNING: qlnativefc: (86:0.0): scsi(3): Mailbox command 0x2 timeout occurred. Scheduling ISP abort.
2025-02-14T14:25:23.189Z cpu39:2098197)qlnativefc: (86:0.0): scsi(3): qlnativefcMailboxCommand(3): **** FAILED
2025-02-14T14:25:23.189Z cpu39:2098197)WARNING: qlnativefc: (86:0.0): scsi(3): scsi(3): Failed to initialize adapter - Adapter flags 2.

This may arise be due to driver/firmware issues, BIOS configuration or a HBA card hardware issue please refer, Determining Network/Storage firmware and driver version in ESXi.

Resolution

- Ensure drivers/firmware are updated to the latest supported versions
- Ensure BIOS configuration is correct as per hardware vendor recommendations
- Engage hardware vendor to hardware health of the HBA card

Note: Please validate if controller is showing "passthrough" as disabled (Mostly for iSCSI connections).