Storage targets missing for an HBA on an ESXi host

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere ESX 6.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 7.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

An Administrator observes that there are storage paths to a single HBA but not the other HBA. Rebooting the ESXi host does not make paths visible to that HBA.

Environment

ESXi (All versions)
Storage array

Cause

Upon boot/reboot of the ESXi host, the HBA driver is able to successfully perform a login to the array targets:

/var/log/boot:

2025-06-09T18:32:59.437Z cpu44:2098172)ql_fcoe:vmhba3:GPN_FTCallback:2812:Info: 0x43159a96be90   0: 20:01:1a:20:03:10:##:## 0a0b04 0  <--- HBA itself
2025-06-09T18:32:59.437Z cpu44:2098172)ql_fcoe:vmhba3:GPN_FTCallback:2812:Info: 0x43159a96be90   1: 50:00:09:73:b0:10:##:## 0a2900 0  <--- Array target
2025-06-09T18:32:59.437Z cpu44:2098172)ql_fcoe:vmhba3:GPN_FTCallback:2812:Info: 0x43159a96be90   2: 50:00:09:73:b0:10:##:## 0a3840 80 <--- Array target

However, the HBA itself is reporting that no LUNs are being presented to it from the array side for both targets:

/usr/lib/vmware/vmkmgmt_keyval/vmkmgmt_keyval -a

Target Information:

TGT ID[0]:

No. of LUNS:0

WWNN=0x50000973b010####:a2900
WWPN=0x50000973b010####:a2900
Internal State: OFFLOADED
Transport State: OFFLOADED
active i/o: 0, free sqes: 1024(0)
Flush in progress: 0

TGT ID[1]:

No. of LUNS:0

WWNN=0x50000973b010####:a3840
WWPN=0x50000973b010####:a3840
Internal State: OFFLOADED
Transport State: OFFLOADED
active i/o: 0, free sqes: 1024(0)
Flush in progress: 0

Resolution

In this instance, the HBA is successfully logged into the target but the array target itself is not presenting any LUNs to this initiator. Contact the array vendor to validate that the WWPN for the HBA has LUNs presented to it.