ESXi Host Stuck at 25% While Entering Maintenance Mode in Mixed vSphere 7.x and 8.x Environments

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to enter Maintenance Mode on an ESXi host, the task becomes stuck at 25% in the vCenter UI with the following message:

“Waiting for all VMs to be powered off or suspended or migrated. In a DRS cluster, check the Faults page on the DRS tab for troubleshooting.”

This issue occurs in environments where both vSphere 7.x and vSphere 8.x hosts coexist in the same DRS cluster.

Environment

• VMware ESXi Server  7.x
• VMware ESXi Server  8.x

Cause

In a mixed vSphere 7.x and 8.x environment with DRS, a VM of 7.x version that is not compatible with ESXi 8.0 Update 1 and later might prevent an ESXi 8.0 Update 1 host to enter maintenance mode.
The issue is specific for virtual machines with VMDK on a vSphere Virtual Volumes datastore. 

Resolution

Power off the incompatible virtual machine manually.
Retry placing the ESXi host into Maintenance Mode.