An ESXi host cannot be removed from vCenter as it was previously configured as a dedicated failover host within the vSphere HA admission control settings

Products

• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• While trying to remove or decommission the ESXi host, we received the following error
  "The current operation cannot be performed on the host 'host01' because it has been configured as a failover host for a cluster."
• In the vSphere HA admission control, we set "Define host failure capacity" to disable the same error is reported. 
• In var/log/vmware/vpxd/vpxd.log We would see similar entries given below

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.798Z warning vpxd[07266] [Originator@6876 sub=Vmomi opID=#########-7570-auto-5ub-h5:70003431-d7] VMOMI activation LRO failed; <<52b01084-1d23-967f-fde2-b23881146ded, <TCP '127.0.0.1 : 8085'>, <TCP '127.0.0.1 : 38422'>>, host-##, vim.ManagedEntity.destroy, <vim.version.v9_0_0_0, internal, 9.0.0.0>, (null)>, N3Vim5Fault33Disall
owedOperationOnFailoverHost9ExceptionE(Fault cause: vim.fault.DisallowedOperationOnFailoverHost
--> )
--> [context]zKq7AVECAQAAADJseQEVdnB4ZAAAyzdIbGlidm1hY29yZS5zbwAArDA3AA9VOIHzniwBdnB4ZACBXOgtAYFQ6y0BgQGbMwGBhl08AYJP1jgBbGlidmltLXR5cGVzLnNvAIFtZK8CA0NvHGxpYnZtb21pLnNvAIE2m4kCgX/crQKBL+2tAoHJ+qwCgdTVrQIABPwsAA9VLQDrKkYExJAIbGliYy5zby42AARskRA=[/context]
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.800Z info vpxd[07266] [Originator@6876 sub=vpxLro opID=#########-7570-auto-5ub-h5:70003431-d7] [VpxLRO] -- FINISH task-8052
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.800Z error vpxd[07266] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=#########-7570-auto-5ub-h5:70003431-d7] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-8052 -- 52b01084-1d23-967f-fde2-b23881146ded(5250e924-03d2-0e2d-bef2-91f07cb42647) -- host-XX -- vim.ManagedEntity.destroy: :vim.fault.DisallowedOperationOnFailoverHost
--> Result:
--> (vim.fault.DisallowedOperationOnFailoverHost) {
-->    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
-->    faultMessage = <unset>,
-->    host = 'vim.HostSystem:######-133f-44cb-#####-0e29b2684837:host-##',
-->    hostname = "esxi-hostname"
-->    msg = ""
--> }
--> Args:
-->

 

Environment

vCenter 7.x 
vCenter 8.x 
vCenter 9.x

Cause

After changing the "Define host failure capacity" to disabled, the assigned host is not released in the Admission Control configuration.
When checking the Admission Control configuration, the host is still listed in the Failover Hosts grid.

Resolution

Broadcom engineering is aware of the issue and is currently under investigation.

Workaround:

1. Navigate to vCenter Server -> Cluster  -> Configure -> vSphere Availability -> vSphere HA -> Edit
2. Select the Admission control tab -> Define host failover capacity by -> 
3. Change the option from Dedicated failover host to slot policy (powered-on-VMs) or Cluster resource percentage, and click Ok.
   
4. Remove the host from the vCenter.