Upgrade plan in SDDC manager shows "Cannot upgrade to VCF version 5.2.1.0 for domain <domain_id> in a compatible way: not upgradable:"

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager
• VMware Cloud Foundation

Issue/Introduction

Upgrade plan in SDDC manager shows "not upgradable".

You cannot select this target version for the following reasons. Select a different target version to proceed.

Cannot upgrade to VCF version 5.2.1.0 for domain <domain_id> in a compatible way: not upgradable: VCENTER 7.0.3.02400-24730281 -> VCENTER 8.0.3.00300-24305161, ESX_HOST 7.0.3-24723872 -> ESX_HOST 8.0.3-24280767; not interopable: ESX_HOST 8.0.3-24280767 -> VCENTER 7.0.3.02400-24730281

 

Environment

VCF 5.2

Cause

This issue is occurring due to the back in time upgrade restrictions where the previous major vSphere version (7.x) is upgraded to the latest build which is released later than the BOM components of 5.2.1.0

 

Resolution

Contact Broadcom support for the workaround.

Additional Information

For instance, 

If VCF 4.5.2 hosts and vCenter are upgrade to 7U3v, the users will encounter this issue as 7U3v can't be upgraded to ESXi 8U3b / vCenter 8U3c which are the BOM versions of VCF 5.2.1 due to back in time upgrade restrictions.