vCenter Server fails to power on with false License key has expired error

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Administrators are unable to power on the vCenter Server virtual machine from the ESXi Host Client UI. The power-on task fails with the following error message: License key has expired

When verifying the ESXi host, the applied license is active and valid. Furthermore, establishing an SSH session to the ESXi host running the vCenter Server virtual machine and executing basic commands results in command execution failures returning out of memory errors.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x 

VMware ESXi 8.0.x

Cause

The issue is caused by user-world memory exhaustion on the ESXi host impacting the hostd management agent. When hostd is starved of memory, it cannot correctly validate the host's active license repository. This failure to read the license state triggers a false-positive license-expiration block during vCenter Server virtual machine power-on pre-checks.

Resolution

1. Establish an SSH session to the affected ESXi host where the vCenter Server virtual machine resides and log in as root.

2. Restart the hostd management agent to clear the memory footprint and re-initialize the service: /etc/init.d/hostd restart Note: In severe memory exhaustion states, the agent may fail to restart on the first attempt. Execute the restart command multiple times (e.g., up to three times) until the service stabilizes and memory is freed.

3. Execute a standard CLI command (such as ls or esxcli) to verify the "out of memory" condition has cleared.

4. Log in to the ESXi Host Client UI, navigate to the vCenter Server virtual machine, and initiate the Power On operation.

 

Additional Information

To prevent recurrence, the ESXi host build version should be verified against known management agent memory leaks in the VMware by Broadcom release notes, and upgraded to a patched release if applicable.