ESXi hosts show in vCenter inventory, but don't show up in VCF Operations UI.

Products

• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

This article addresses scenarios in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.x where ESXi hosts within a Workload Domain are functional in vCenter but do not appear in the SDDC Manager Lifecycle Management (LCM) component versions page.

• ESXi hosts are running workloads successfully in the environment.
• Hosts appear correctly in vCenter inventory.
• Lifecycle Management (LCM) page for the Workload Domain displays hosts as blank or missing.

Environment

• VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1.x
• SDDC Manager 9.1.0.x
• vCenter Server 8.0.x

Cause

• Hosts were added manually to vCenter, bypassing the standard VCF commission workflow.
• VCF Operations license entitlement is missing or capacity is exceeded, filtering out discovered objects.
• Stale inventory synchronization between SDDC Manager and VCF Operations.

Resolution

1. Check Global Inventory: Navigate to Environment > Inventory > vCenter Server > Host System in the VCF Operations global search. If hosts appear here, the issue is a mapping error rather than a communication failure.
2. Verify Licensing: Ensure VCF Operations has sufficient licensed capacity and that all host objects are fully entitled (ESXi hosts missing from UI views due to licensing).
3. Perform Inventory Sync: Navigate to Infrastructure Operations > Configurations > Inventory Management and perform a manual sync to refresh the mapping between vCenter and VCF Operations.
4. Validate Host Commissioning: If hosts were added manually to vCenter you will need to perform the following steps.
   1. Remove the hosts from vCenter inventory.
   2. Re-install ESXi on the hosts.
   3. Commission them properly through the VCF Operations workflow following steps found in TechDoc VCF 9.0 - Commission ESX Hosts (select appropriate version from the drop-down at top of left menu).

1.  

Additional Information

• For detailed commissioning steps, refer to: Commission Hosts - VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 (Select proper version from drop-down at top of left menu)