Port groups details are lost after upgrading esxi host to 7.x

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Following upgrade of ESXi host from 6.x to 7.x, port group configuration was lost.
• Log entries from /var/run/log/hostd.log indicates that following ESXi upgrade, host is unable to locate virtual switch configurations for vSwitch (Name: vSwitch/abc), resulting in the associated port groups being missing.
  

  YYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss info hostd[2099565] [Originator@6876 sub=Hostsvc.NetworkProvider] dvportgroups information not loaded from soap file /etc/vmware/hostd/dvportgroups.xml: no element found.
YYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss warning hostd[2099565] [Originator@6876 sub=Hostsvc.NetworkProvider] Invalid portgroup information in soap xml file : no element found
YYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss warning hostd[2099565] [Originator@6876 sub=Libs] PortGroup: Unable to fetch configured network policy: Unable to find Vswitch configuration for vSwitch/abc
YYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss error hostd[2099565] [Originator@6876 sub=Hostsvc.NetworkProvider] ProcessVirtualSwitch: Error fetch portgroups for switch vSwitch/abc: Unable to find Vswitch configuration for vSwitch/abc
YYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss warning hostd[2099731] [Originator@6876 sub=Libs] PortGroup: Unable to fetch configured network policy: Unable to find Vswitch configuration for vSwitch/abc

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.x / 7.x / 8.x

Cause

vswitch name vSwitch/abc includes a forward slash /, which is causing parsing issues.

Resolution

To address the issue of missing port groups caused by vSwitch names containing forward slashes, please follow the steps below:

• Ensure host is in Maintenance Mode.
  
  
• Verify the current vSwitch configuration:

configstorecli config current get -c esx -g network_vss -k switches

• Export current configuration to a JSON file

configstorecli config current get -c esx -g network_vss -k switches > vswitch.json

• Edit vswitch.json file using a text editor (e.g., vi), Remove or rename any vSwitch entries containing forward slashes (/).
  
  
• Apply the updated configuration:

configstorecli config current set -c esx -g network_vss -k switches -i vswitch.json --overwrite

• Reboot the ESXi host for changes to take effect.