"Profile validation failed. Check the profile for errors" when disable SNMP settings in Host Profile

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• The Host Profile is extracted from ESXi host which have configured with SNMP settings
• Edit the Host Profile and uncheck the below options of SNMP:
  
  General System Settings - Management Agent Configuration - SNMP Agent Configuration - Other SNMP configurations


• The task failed with error messages "Profile validation failed. Check the profile for errors."
• In the vCenter Server the /var/log/vmware/vpxd.log may contain below similar messages:
  
  Result:   
{  
  fault: {  
    faultCause: (vim01.MethodFault) null,  
    faultMessage: <unset>,  
    failure: (vim.fault.ProfileUpdateFailed.UpdateFailure) [  
      (vim.fault.ProfileUpdateFailed.UpdateFailure) {  
        profilePath = "snmp_GenericAgentProfiles.GenericAgentConfigProfile.snmp_GenericAgentProfiles_AgentConfigProfileOthers",  
        policyId = "snmp.GenericAgentProfiles.AgentConfigProfilePolicy",  
        parameterId = "target",  
        policyOptionId = <unset>  
      },  
      errMsg = (vim01.LocalizableMessage) {  
        key = "com.vmware.profile.GenericAgentConfigProfile.ValidateError",  
        arg = <unset>,  
        message = "Format: ip-or-hostname[port]/community,..."  
      }  
    ],  
    warnings = <unset>  
  },  
  msg = "Received SOAP response fault from [<SSI>(ico_obj) p:0x00000003:45668, h:12839, <TCP <VC-IP> : 51342>, <<ESXi-IP> : 443>>, /vpxas]: bookKeep",  
}  
Profile validation failed. Check the profile for errors.

Environment

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

Cause

The targets information are required to configure SNMP in ESXi host. It is not allowed to disable SNMP in Host Profile when targets configured. 

Resolution

To workaround the issue:

1. Remove targets from SNMP configurations in ESXi host with below commands:
   
   esxcli system snmp set --targets=reset


2. Remove the communities from SNMP configurations with below commands:
   
   esxcli system snmp set --communities=reset
   
   
3. After that extract Host Profile again from the ESXi host.
4. Editing the Host Profile again should be successful.