Error 'No host is compatible with the virtual machine. The user specified host is not compatible.' while powering on a VM on vSAN cluster.

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms

On a vSAN cluster host, when trying to power on a VM, it fails with error "No host is compatible with the virtual machine. The user specified host is not compatible"

The vSAN cluster health would show warnings for vSAN cluster partition and hosts maintenance mode status.

Environment

VMware vSAN 7.x

VMware vSAN 8.x

Cause

The issue would occur when hosts are in vSAN cluster network partition state.

This issue may also show up when hosts are either entering into maintenance mode or in partial DECOM STATE.

When checking for vSAN cluster status using command line, you may see incorrect "Sub-Cluster Member Count:" as well as hosts may also show maintenance mode task in progress.

Example below:

[root@6:~] esxcli vsan cluster get

Cluster Information
Enabled: true
Current Local Time: 2025-03-24T01:17:00Z
Local Node UUID: 656a#####-27##-f8##-9c##-############
Local Node Type: NORMAL
Local Node State: BACKUP
Local Node Health State: HEALTHY
Sub-Cluster Master UUID: 656a#####-6a##-02##-d8##-############
Sub-Cluster Backup UUID: 656#####-27##-f8##-9c##-############
Sub-Cluster UUID: 523#####-62##-f7##-0c##-############
Sub-Cluster Membership Entry Revision: 0
Sub-Cluster Member Count: 2 -------------------------------------------->> Member count show 2 where the cluster consists of 3 nodes.

Unicast Mode Enabled: true
Maintenance Mode State: ENTERING ---------------------------------------> The host may show up as ENTERING for maintenance mode task.
Config Generation: d34#####-c2##-47##-############ 3 2025-03-24T00:38:37.58
Mode: REGULAR

Resolution

The maintenance mode / DECOM task should be fixed along with the cluster partition to address this type of issue.

To fix the maintenance mode / DECOM issue, verify if the task is still running on vCenter. If not, please use the command below cancel the maintenance mode task. 

esxcli vsan maintenance mode cancel

Refer vSAN Host Maintenance Mode is in sync with vSAN Node Decommission State if the above command does not resolve the issue.