"A general system error occurred: vDS host error: see faultCause Cannot create DVPort <Port ID> of VDS <DVS Name> on the host <Hostname>", Unable to remove ESXi host from VC inventory

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• ESXi hosts that have been powered off and physically removed from the environment cannot be removed from the vCenter inventory.
• You may see the following errors when trying to remove or edit the host in the vCenter:
  
  A general system error occurred: vDS host error: see faultCause Cannot create DVPort ### of VDS <DISTRIBUTED SWITCH NAME> on the host <hostname.example.com>
  
  

Environment

• vSphere 7.x
• vSphere 8.x

Cause

• Stale VMs or Templates are still registered to the vCenter through the ESXi host which is trying to remove.
• This can be verified by selecting the Host from the Inventory and click on VMs Tab -> VM Templates:
  
  Sample screenshot:
  

Resolution

• Unregister the VM Templates from the inventory by following the Techdocs Remove VMs or VM Templates from vCenter Server
  • See the KB Manually removing a stale VM from the vCenter Server vpostgres database for instructions to manually remove stale VMs from the vCenter database.
• Retry the Remove Host operation after all the VM Templates are unregistered from that host.

Additional Information

Please review the following documentation for the correct process to remove and ESXi host from a vCenter environment:
How to Remove an ESXi Host from Your vCenter Server Instance