Upgrading ESXi is resulting in a PSOD : Failed Modules /usr/lib/vmware/configmanager/upgrade/lib/libupgradehardwareconfig.so

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When upgrading the ESXi host from 6.7 to 8.x it will result in a Purple Screen of Death (PSOD) 

Configuration Upgrade Failure
Please reboot to rollback to the older version
Failed modules:

/usr/lib/vmware/configmanager/upgrade/lib/libupgradehardwareconfig.so

Environment

ESXi 6.7 

DELL PowerEdge with Tesla TU104GL (Tesla T4) GPUs

Cause

This issue points to a mismatch in how the upgrade process is trying to migrate hardware-specific settings into the new ESXi 8.0 configuration schema.

Resolution

Perform the upgrade by going to 6.7 to 7.x to 8.x rather than 6.7 to 8.x.

This will allow the upgrade to succeed without issue and the ESXi will not PSOD.