ESXi Patch/upgrade fails with Error in purging old directory: [Errno 39] Directory not empty: '/locker/packages/var/db/locker/baseimages'

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) fails to remediate ESXi 7 and later
  
  
• Error: While patching using the CLI,
  
           esxcli software profile update -d "/vmfs/volumes/68cb1336-cb11ae6c-fe90-ecf40c01cb2a/VMware-ESXi-7.0U3w-24784741-depot.zip" -p ESXi-7.0U3w-24784741-standard
  
  [DatabaseIOError]
  Error in purging old directory: [Errno 39] Directory not empty: '/locker/packages/var/db/locker/baseimages'
   filename = /locker/packages/var/db/locker
  
  
• The folder 'baseimages' is empty and does not contain any files.
  
  
• Manually delete (rm -rf baseimages) the folder failed with the error: “Can't remove 'baseimages': Directory not empty”

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi

Resolution

1. Rename the existing folder

    mv baseimages baseimages.old

2. Create a new empty directory with the same name

    mkdir baseimages

3. Re-run the ESXi installer