After the upgrade from esxi 7.0 Update 3 to 8.0.U3, hostd crashes on ESXi host continuously

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• The host is inaccessible, whether using the vSphere Client, Host UI, or SSH.
• Hostd service keeps crashing.
• When manually started, the hostd service stops within a minute or two, but no crash dump is created.

Environment

• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0 U3x
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0 U3x

Cause

Missing of vDS switch configuration from ESXi configstore causing the Hostd to crash.

Resolution

Identify the Problematic vDS

• Establish an SSH session to the affected ESXi host.

• List all configured distributed virtual switches (dvSwitches) using:

  esxcli network vswitch dvs vmware list

• For each dvSwitch listed, execute the following commands to verify configuration:

  configstorecli config current get -c esx -g network_vds -k switches -i <dvSwitch_Name>  
  configstorecli config current get -c esx -g network_vds -k switch_solutions -i <dvSwitch_Name>

• Note any dvSwitch where either command returns no output, indicating a potential configuration issue.

Unlink vDS Uplinks

• Remove the associated physical NICs (vmnics) from the identified problematic dvSwitch using:

  esxcfg-vswitch -Q <vmnic> -V <dvPort_ID_of_vmnic> <dvSwitch_Name>

Reconfigure the vDS

• Reconfigure the distributed virtual switch on the affected ESXi host using the vSphere Client interface.

Restore Connectivity (if required)

• If network connectivity is not fully restored after reconfiguration, consider restarting the host's management agents to re-establish proper communication. See Restarting Management Agents in ESXi