ESXi PSOD: "Unable to restore the system configuration. A security violation was detected" after reinstallation

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• After performing a reinstallation or upgrade of ESXi, the host fails to boot into the hypervisor and triggers a Purple Screen of Death (PSOD) with the following error message:
  The system has found a problem on your machine and cannot continue.
Unable to restore the system configuration. A security violation was detected. https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/312109

• The error persists even after:
  • Reinstalling the ESXi.
  • Toggling Secure Boot (Enable/Disable) in the BIOS.
  • Toggling the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) status.
  • Attempting "Recover Options" from the boot menu.

Environment

• VMware vSphere ESXi 9.x
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

• This issue typically occurs when the TPM contains stale or mismatched encryption metadata/keys from a previous installation.
• Even if the ESXi software is reinstalled, the Secure Boot process detects a discrepancy between the new system configuration and the persisted keys stored in the hardware TPM cache. Because ESXi 8.x and above strictly enforces the integrity of the system configuration when a TPM is present, it halts the boot process to prevent a potential security breach.

Resolution

• To resolve this issue, perform a hardware-level clear of the TPM reaching out to respective hardware vendor and reinstall ESXi.
• If this still fails with the same error, capture the serial logs referring to the KB - Enabling serial-line logging for ESXi and reach out to Broadcom Support. 
• Simultaneously, contact hardware vendor to investigate the hardware possibly due to some of the issues below may have occurred
   (Note: This is not an all inclusive list but list of a few possible causes.) 
  • The TPM chip is broken/data is corrupted, hence writing to memory fails. 
  • TPM chip seating problem
  • System broad issues