Error: "MetadataDownloadError" when upgrading Network or Storage drivers using esxcli

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to upgrade Broadcom network or storage drivers on an ESXi host using the following commands:
  
  esxcli software component apply
  
  or
  
  esxcli software vib install  
  
  the installation fails with the following error:
  
  [MetadataDownloadError] Could not download from depot at zip:/vmfs/volumes/####/tmp/Broadcom-bnxt-Net-RoCE_####.zip?index.xml, skipping Error extracting index.xml from /vmfs/volumes/####/tmp/Broadcom-bnxt-Net-RoCE_####.zip: [Errno 2] No such file or directory


• In the /var/log/esxupdate.log, you may also see: KeyError: "There is no item named 'index.xml' in the archive"

Environment

VMware ESXi 8.x

Cause

This issue occurs when the driver package downloaded from the Broadcom support portal is a compressed archive containing another ZIP file. The esxcli command expects a valid offline bundle (depot) containing an index.xml file. If the command points to the outer wrapper ZIP file, it cannot find the required metadata because it is nested within the secondary ZIP file. 

Resolution

To resolve this issue, extract the contents of the downloaded package to locate the actual driver ZIP file (offline bundle) before attempting the installation.

1. Download the driver package from the Broadcom support portal.
2. Unzip the downloaded file on your local machine or the ESXi host to reveal the internal ZIP file (e.g., Broadcom-bnxt-Net-RoCE_####-package.zip).
3. Upload the extracted driver ZIP file to the ESXi host datastore (e.g., /vmfs/volumes/####/tmp/).
4. Run the installation command pointing directly to the extracted ZIP file:
   
   esxcli software component apply -d /vmfs/volumes/####/tmp/Broadcom-bnxt-Net-RoCE_####-package.zip

Additional Information

Uploading a ZIP file to vCenter Lifecycle Manager fails with the error "A depot is inaccessible or has invalid contents"