ESXi remediation fails from 7.x to 8.x fails with Software or system configuration is incompatible

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The following errors might be encountered during installation or upgrades of ESXi hosts to 8.0:

• Software or system configuration of host <hostname> is incompatible. Check scan results for details.
• The operation failed because the current software stack or hardware/firmware configuration of the host is not compatible with the desired image/baseline.

• The upgrade has VIBs that are missing dependencies. Remove the VIBs or use Image Builder to create a custom upgrade ISO image that contains the missing dependencies and try to upgrade again.

 

Environment

• ESXi 7.x 
• ESXI 8.x

Cause

This issue occurred because the host is currently using a custom ISO that included additional vendor-specific VIBs.

When attempting to upgrade using a standard VMware base image, those custom VIBs are not present, resulting in missing dependencies and upgrade failure.

Resolution

Download the latest custom iso and then proceed with the upgrade. 

See: Download latest ISOs and patches for vSphere ESXi