ESXi license does not change to evaluation license on vCenter Server UI after upgrading ESXi hosts.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

After upgrading ESXi hosts from 7.x to 8.x, the ESXi license did not change to an evaluation license in the vCenter Server UI.

This happened while vCenter Server was stopped during the ESXi host upgrade.

Additionally, the license update process failed in vpxd.log.

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS  error vpxd[06912] [Originator@6876 sub=licenseClientFaultTolerance opID=HB-SpecSync-host-4007@11166057-3ddb81ac] UpdateHostLicenseSpec threw N7Vmacore9ExceptionE(License client start has failed.)

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

the license service initialization process on the vCenter Server side is taking time, leading to a failure in the synchronization process during vCenter Server startup. 

Resolution

Disconnect and reconnect the host to sync license information while the vCenter Server is running.