PSOD with UEFI Secure Boot failed due to incorrect CMOS/system time

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware Cloud Foundation

Issue/Introduction

• PSOD error:

The system has found a problem on your machine and cannot continue.
UEFI Secure Boot failed at time 2000-01-01T02:03:00.190Z:
Failed to verify signatures of the following vib(s): [LVO-upgradeclean atlantic bcm-mpi3 ... All tardisks validated]

• The system time reported in the error message has reverted to a default date (e.g., 2000-01-01).

 

 

Environment

ESXi: 8.0U3

VCF: 5.2

Cause

• The motherboard's CMOS battery has failed or depleted, causing the hardware clock to reset to its factory default date (2000-01-01).
• Since this hardware time predates the validity period of the digital certificates used to sign the ESXi VIBs, UEFI Secure Boot rejects the VIB signatures as invalid and halts the system to protect integrity.

 

Resolution

• Manually update the UEFI System Time.

• Disable UEFI secure boot to allow the host to synchronize the system time using NTP. 

• Replace CMOS battery