Error: "Fatal Error: 15 (Not found)" when patching ESXi host or while booting after abrupt shutdown

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

If the ESXi host that you want to patch using the vSphere Update Manager has live installable VIB installed on it, then the patch staging operation followed by one more live install might display an error message similar to the following on the subsequent reboot or during booting of the host after abrupt shutdown.

Fatal Error: 15 (Not found)

Environment

• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Resolution

Fatal error during Patching:

Reboot the ESXi host.

Note: The server boots back to the original ESXi build.

1. Install the ESXi patch again.
2. After scanning the ESXi patch baseline, skip the Stage baseline option.
3. Select the Remediate baseline option.

Fatal error while booting after abrupt shutdown:

The ESXi host failed to boot and reported the error: “Fatal error: 15 (not found)” after loading the state.tgz file during abrupt shutdown/power failure.

This can cause state.tgz file became corrupted.

On ESXi Installable or Embedded hosts, configuration changes are persisted in the state.tgz file located on the boot device.

• The state.tgz archive contains critical configuration data, including a copy of /etc/vmware/esx.conf.
• This configuration is referenced early in the ESXi boot process, prior to driver initialization.
• Corruption of the state.tgz file can therefore prevent the host from completing the boot sequence

We have reinstall the ESXI in order to boot up the host.