ESXi Host physical NICs (vmnics) missing link speed or not detected in SDDC Manager after Commissioning

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer

Issue/Introduction

During the host commissioning process in SDDC Manager, a subset of physical NICs (pNICs) fails to display link speed metadata or does not appear in the UI inventory, despite having 6 physical adapters. On the ESXi host layer, all NICs are identified correctly, showing a status of "Link Up" via the Host Client and the ESXi CLI (esxcli network nic list). Administrative actions such as bouncing the interfaces (up/down) or rebooting the ESXi host do not resolve the discrepancy in the SDDC Manager inventory.

Environment

VMware ESX
VMware SDDC Manager

Cause

This issue is typically caused by a synchronization failure between the SDDC Manager’s Discovery service and the ESXi host’s hardware profile during the initial polling phase. Specifically, the metadata for certain vmnics fails to populate in the SDDC Manager Commons database (platform database), resulting in a null or blank value for the link speed. Because the inventory object is already created in a partial state, subsequent hardware changes on the host are not automatically reflected in the SDDC Manager UI during the commissioning workflow.

Resolution

To resolve the inventory mismatch, the host object must be purged and recreated in SDDC Manager:

1. Decommission the Host: Navigate to Inventory > Hosts in SDDC Manager. Select the affected host and perform the Decommission action to remove it from the inventory.

2. Verify Host Cleanliness: Ensure the ESXi host is not associated with any distributed switches (vDS) created by previous commissioning attempts.

3. Re-Commission the Host: Navigate to Inventory > Hosts and click Commission Hosts. Re-enter the host details and credentials.

4. Validate Links: Once the discovery phase completes, verify that all 6 physical NICs are visible and that the correct link speeds are displayed before finalizing the commissioning.