Stale or ghost standard switch port groups showing in vCenter

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• After migrating networks to a vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS), several stale standard switch port groups remain visible in the vCenter Network view.
• These port groups appear to have no hosts or virtual machines (VMs) attached to them, and the option to remove them is unavailable in the vSphere Client.
  
  Below is the screenshot of a sample standard switch port group with no reference of hosts/VM's attached to it but still exists:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Environment

VMware vCenter Server

Cause

• The standard switch port groups cannot be deleted if they are still actively referenced by one or more VM/templates.
• While the vSphere UI may show zero "Virtual Machines" connected, the Managed Object Browser (MOB) reveals that these port groups maintain associations with templates that were not updated during the migration.

Resolution

Please open a case with Broadcom Support Team and reference this KB for resolution.