VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager timed out waiting for host to reconnect after reboot.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

While upgrading ESXi host using LCM host has to reboot which triggers the error below:

ERROR: VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager timed out waiting for host to reconnect after reboot. To ensure complete installation, reconnect the host, exit maintenance mode, and run a scan. Check host agent, vpxa and esxupdate logs for details.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

VMware vCenter 7.x

VMware vCenter 8.x

Cause

The underlying cause of this error is the extended duration of the host reboot process. During this period, which has been observed to extend up to approximately 32 minutes, the ESXi host becomes unresponsive to vCenter Server. Consequently, vCenter Server loses connectivity with the host, leading to the timeout error despite the host eventually rebooting successfully.

Resolution

This behavior is considered expected under certain circumstances and can be safely disregarded, provided two conditions are met:

• The ESXi host successfully reconnects to vCenter Server automatically after the reboot.
• The ESXi host upgrade operation completes successfully.

Even when these conditions are met and the underlying issue is resolved, the error notification in vCenter Server will persist. Manual acknowledgment and reset of the error message are required to clear the alert within vCenter Server.