"Unable to acquire ownership of TPM 2.0 device. Please clear TPM through the BIOS" appears in vSphere Client.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

 "Unable to acquire ownership of TPM 2.0 device. Please clear TPM through the BIOS" appears in vSphere Client. 

It is confirmed that no vTPM is required by VM and no TPM is required by ESXi.

Environment

vCenter Server

Resolution

Disable TPM from bios/UEFI layer.

1. Check TPM isn't required by ESXi boot up. "Mode" is expected to be "NONE". "Require Secure Boot" is expected to be "false". 

   esxcli system settings encryption get

   1. If "Mode" is set "TPM", switch it to "NONE".

      esxcli system settings encryption set --mode=NONE

   2. If "Require Secure Boot" is set "true", switch it to "false".

      esxcli system settings encryption set -s 0

2. Check TPM visibility with esxcli. "Tpm Present" is expected to be set to "false".

   esxcli hardware trustedboot get

3. If it shows "true", please check bios/UEFI setting and disable TPM hardware. 
4. Reboot ESXi server. Perform step 2 to verify it has been set to "false".
5. Verify the info no longer exists in vSphere Client.