ESXi Host is not coming back on line / VM shows disconnected

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0
• VMware vSphere ESX 7.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

After a ESXi outage resulting in an ESXi Host being permanently offline (e.g. due to Hardware failure),

VM(s) registered on this Host are showing as "disconnected" in the vSphere Web Client and therefore cannot be managed.

 

Example:

Environment

ESXi 7.x

ESXi 8.x

Cause

VM(s) showing as disconnected because the Host on which the VM(s) is registered on is not connected to vCenter (= showing as "Not responding")

Resolution

In order to manage the VM(s) while the Host is offline:

Option 1

1. For the time, the affected Host is offline and/or not being able to re-connect to vCenter:
   Remove the Host from Inventory by right-clicking the Host and select "Remove from Inventory" from the pop-up menu.
2. Follow the steps outlined in KB 335224 to register the affected VM(s) on one of the other Hosts which are online
   
   

Option 2

1. Login to different Host Client UI of the ESXi Host which is online. 
2. Click Storage in the VMware Host Client inventory.
3. Right-click a datastore from the list and click Register a VM.
4. Select the virtual machine you want to register from the list and click Register.