Error: "Encryption operations are ongoing on the cluster. Please retry after the encryption operation is finished or cancelled" noticed during ESXi host decommission workflow from the SDDC manager.

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Error: "Encryption operations are ongoing on the cluster. Please retry after the encryption operation is finished or cancelled" noticed during ESXi host decommission workflow from the SDDC manager.
  
  
• The following error messages can be noticed on the SDDC logs. The error is noticed when the decommission workflow try to put the ESXi host in maintenance mode.
  
  "failureLog": "Operation error (OperationID=########-####-####-####-#############: OperationID ########-####-####-####-############# (OperationResource=host, Operation=PlaceHostInMaintenance failed: Error encountered in Enter Maintenance Operation for Host: esxiHost Error: {########-####-####-####-############# ########-####-####-####-############# esxiHost  1 error occurred:
EPC_FTTVIOLATION:Vcenter Message: com.vmware.vsan.whatif.emm.encryptionongoing:Encryption operations are ongoing on the cluster. Please retry after the encryption operation is finished or cancelled.


• When the manual evacuation precheck is run against any of the ESXi host with any evacuation method (ensure accessibility, no action, full data evacuation). The precheck also fails with the same message.
  
  

Environment

VMWare vSAN 8.x

Cause

The error message "Encryption operations are ongoing on the cluster. Please retry after the encryption operation is finished or cancelled" during decommission  means that the ESXi host cannot be placed into maintenance mode because the vSAN cluster is actively performing a major encryption operation within the cluster. 

This could mean that other ESXi host in the same cluster may be in process of going to maintenance mode or any vSAN disk group is getting removed/recreated etc. 

Two decommission task which involve moving the objects from one ESXi host to another is not permitted and the user need to wait for one task to be complete/failed before initiating another task, If another decommission task is initiated, the above error is expected.

Resolution

 The user need to wait for the task which is considered as decommissioning (maintenance mode, disk group removal/recreate) to be completed/failed before initiating another task.