NSX host upgrade is failing during the upgrade with the error "unexpected error while upgrading the upgrade unit: unable to connect the host https://X.X.X.X/sdk".

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

• NSX-T is being upgraded.
• NSX-T version is 3.0 or above.
• ESXi version is 7.0 or above.
• In-place upgrade of the ESXi hosts is selected.
• The host unit upgrade fails with the following error displayed:

"Unexpected error while upgrading the upgrade unit: unable to connect the host https://X.X.X.X/sdk".

• Similar error logs as displayed in the UI can also be found on the NSX-T manager logs  /var/log/upgrade-coordinator/upgrade-coordinator.log, var/log/syslog: ESXi logs of the impacted host /var/run/log/esxupdate.log.

Environment

VMware NSX-T Data Center.

Cause

• An NSX-T In-place upgrade of an ESXi host failure can be caused by many things.

Some of the most common causes specific to in-place upgrade include: Insufficient memory or failure during dual load of kernel modules, or connectivity issues between the NSX manager and the host.

• We can validate by performing a netcat operation, nc -zv <nsx manager FQDN or IP> 443

Resolution

Workaround:

1. Restart the NSX Central Control Plane(nsx-ccp) service on all three manager nodes.
   Command: /etc/init.d/nsx-ccp restart
2. Log in to vCenter Server and place the impacted host into maintenance mode.
3. Reboot the host that is failing the upgrade.
4. Exit NSX maintenance mode on the NSX Hosts page.
5. Resume the upgrade process, which will now NOT be an in-place upgrade.

For detailed documentation on troubleshooting upgrade failures, refer to the following guide: Troubleshooting Upgrade Failures
For detailed documentation on in-place upgrade failures, refer to the following guide: In-Place Upgrade Fails

Resolution:

This is a known issue impacting NSX-T Data Center.