Host Profile wizard fails to load on the vCenter

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• After upgrading vCenter and ESXi hosts to version 9.x, the following issues are encountered:
  
  
  • All hosts in a cluster are reported as non-compliant against the applied host profile.
  • The Host Profile wizard fails to load and spins infinitely when checking profile configuration on the vSphere Client, under Menu -> Policies and Profiles -> Host Profiles.
  • Exporting the host profile results in an empty payload (0 KB).
    
    
• On the vCenter Server, in /var/log/vmware/vsphere-ui/logs/vsphere_client_virgo.log:
  
  [ERROR] data-service-pool-760 ######## ###### ###### c.v.vsphere.client.hostprofile.impl.HostProfilePropertyProvider Error while retrieving HostApplyProfileData com.vmware.vim.binding.vim.fault.InvalidProfileReferenceHost: There is no suitable host in the inventory as reference host for the profile <Host Profile>.
[ERROR] p-nio-127.0.0.1-####-exec-32 ######## ###### ###### c.v.v.c.hostprofile.data.h5.EditHostProfileOriginalValuesData Error while retrieving HostApplyProfileData com.vmware.vim.binding.vim.fault.InvalidProfileReferenceHost: There is no suitable host in the inventory as reference host for the profile <Host Profile>.

Environment

VMware vCenter 9.0.x

VMware vSphere ESX 9.0.x

Cause

This issue occurs because the ESXi upgrade process invalidates the Host Profile’s reference host.

Since the profile was created from a reference host running ESXi version 8.x, and no hosts remain on that version after the upgrade, the Host Profile becomes invalid due to the absence of a compatible reference build.

Resolution

As the legacy profile cannot be upgraded or edited without an ESXi host matching the older version, a new profile must be extracted from a manually configured host by following the steps below:

1. Run a Remediation Pre-check for the existing Host Profile against any non-compliant ESXi host and document the required configuration changes shown in the output.
   
   
   1. On the vCenter, navigate to Menu -> Policies and Profiles -> Host Profiles
   2. Select the Host Profile
   3. Click on Actions -> Remediate -> Select any host and perform the Pre-check remediation 


2. Manually apply the configuration changes documented in Step 1 to an ESXi host to bring it into the desired compliance state.
   
   
3. Extract a new Host Profile from this updated ESXi Host. Refer Extract and Configure a Host Profile from the Reference Host
   
   
4. Attach the newly created Host Profile to the remaining ESXi hosts in the cluster and remediate them against new Host Profile. Refer How Do You Manage Compliance Checks of Hosts and Clusters to a vSphere Host Profile