REMEDIATE ALL and STAGE ALL options are grayed out on vSphere Lifecycle Manager due to "Host is not compatible with the image" error.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Trying to proceed with the update of ESXi hosts in a cluster returns the following error

• Downgrades of Addon Components <component name> on <component name>, <component name> in the desired ESXi version are not supported.

 

Sample: "Downgrades of Addon Components QLogic NetXtreme II 10 Gigabit Ethernet FCoE and iSCSI Drivers(3.0.251.0-1OEM) in the desired Addon DEL-ESXi are not supported. Select an vendor Addon that does not downgrade an installed Addon Component":

 

 

Environment

• vCenter Server Appliance 8.0.x
• ESXi 8.0.x

Cause

This happens when the ESXi hosts are installed with VIBs that are not included in the image, the most common cause is a custom ESXi image installed on different hardware (i.e.: HPE image installed on Dell hardware)

This can also happen if a custom VIB is manually installed on the host.

Resolution

Make sure the host only has the VIBs that are associated to it.

If a custom VIB is previously installed on the host:

• Consider to rebuild the image of the cluster with that custom component on it as per "How to Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager Images"
  
  or
  
  
• If the VIB is not necessary on your environment, remove the VIB as per KB 342065 (Instructions for uninstalling third-party VIBs from an ESXi host.) 

 

If the host is installed with a wrong custom image:

• Reinstall the host using the correct image.