ESXi host got stuck while booting up with the following error "nmlx5_core loaded successfully. activating: vmkdevmgr"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

We will see the ESXi host boot process stuck with following error "nmlx5_core loaded successfully. activating: vmkdevmgr"

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

The vmkdevmgr jumpstart script polls the Hardware and loads the necessary driver on the platform. It gets stuck while booting (ultimately crashing) because of which the boot process is stuck. 

Since the necessary drivers are not loaded vmkdevmgr crash dump nor NMI (from the Hardware end) will not collect the necessary dump. Only events we could gather is from ALT+F12 running vmkernel logs or via serial line logging on the ESXi host. 

Resolution

Ensure no hardware issue is causing the jumpstart plugin to fail by performing a full health check on the host and fix if necessary.

If no hardware issues, recommended to use SHIFT+R to roll back to previous build or upgrade to 8.0U3d or higher version.