Unable to place ESXi host in maintenance mode - task gets stuck at 2%

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Taking host into maintenance mode is stuck at 2% and after a while fails with a namespace error.
• Attempting to place the host in maintenance mode from cli using: esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true also fails.
• HA Disable/Enable operations fails with error : "License is not available for this operation"

Environment

• vSphere 7.x
• vSphere 8.x

Cause

• This issue is caused when the Solution User certificates are expired on vCenter Server.
• SSH to the vCenter Server and run below shell command to confirm the expiry date of Solution User certificates
  

  for store in $(/usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vecs-cli store list | grep -v TRUSTED_ROOT_CRLS); do echo "[*] Store :" $store; /usr/lib/vmware-vmafd/bin/vecs-cli entry list --store $store --text | grep -ie "Alias" -ie "Not After";done;

Resolution

• Replace the Solution User certificates using the vCert Tool (using options 3. Manage certificates -> 2. Solution User certificates), refer vCert - expired certificate replacement script for more details
• Restart all vCenter Services after the certificate replacement
  
  service-control --stop --all && service-control --start --all