Exit Maintenance Mode stuck at 'Wait for EAM VMs to Power-on' - EAM Login Loop

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to exit Maintenance Mode on an ESXi host within a VMware vSphere cluster, the task remains stuck at "Wait for EAM VMs to Power-on". This occurs because the ESX Agent Manager (EAM) service is unable to manage the lifecycle of vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) Virtual Machines.

Symptoms:

• Host stuck in "Exiting Maintenance Mode" indefinitely.

• service-control --status eam shows the service is "running".

• eam.log on the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) shows repeated initialization and authentication failures:

Plaintext

 

2026-03-12T03:08:03.620Z | ERROR | vlsi | DispatcherImpl.java | 468 | Internal server error during dispatch
com.vmware.vim.binding.eam.fault.EamServiceNotInitialized: EAM is still loading from database. Please try again later.

2026-03-12T03:08:06.447Z |  INFO | vim-monitor | ExtensionSessionRenewer.java | 190 | [Retry:Login:com.vmware.vim.eam:<REDACTED_ID>] Re-login to vCenter because method: currentTime of managed object: null::ServiceInstance:ServiceInstance failed due to expired client session: null

2026-03-12T03:08:11.455Z |  WARN | vim-async-1 | ExtensionSessionRenewer.java | 227 | [Retry:Login:com.vmware.vim.eam:<REDACTED_ID>] Re-login failed, due to:
com.vmware.eam.security.NotAuthenticated: Failed to authenticate extension com.vmware.vim.eam to vCenter.

Caused by: (vim.fault.NotAuthenticated) {
   faultCause = null,
   faultMessage = null,
   object = ManagedObjectReference: type = Folder, value = group-d1, serverGuid = <REDACTED_ID>,
   privilegeId = System.View
}

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 

Cause

A credential or certificate mismatch between the com.vmware.vim.eam extension registration and the vCenter Server prevents the EAM service from authenticating and completing initialization.

Resolution

Use the automated vCert utility to synchronize extension credentials:

1. Download the vCert tool from Broadcom KB 385107.

2. Upload and execute the tool on the vCenter Server Appliance.

3. Navigate to Main Menu 3 (Fix Issues).

4. Select Sub-menu 7 (EAM Password Mismatch).

5. Restart the EAM service:

   Bash

    

   service-control --restart eam
   

6. The EAM service will initialize, and the "Wait for EAM VMs to Power-on" task will complete as vCLS VMs are successfully managed.