The operation cannot continue due to downgrade of the following Components: vsphere-fdm

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

You try to reconfigure HA on hosts within a cluster and receive the following error:

Cannot complete the configuration of the vSphere HA agent on the host. "Applying HA VIBs on the cluster encountered a failure". Failed installing HA component on the host: host-<ID> The operation cannot continue due to downgrade of the following Components: vsphere-fdm.

Environment

vCenter Server 8

Resolution

1. Disable HA on the cluster
   
   
2. ssh to the host and verify that the HA VIB (vmware-fdm) has been removed:
   
    esxcli software vib get -n vmware-fdm
 [NoMatchError]
 No VIB matching VIB search specification 'vmware-fdm' on host.
         id = vmware-fdm
   
   
3. If the vib still exist, manually remove it:
   
   esxcli software vib remove -n vmware-fdm
   
   
4. Enable HA on the cluster