Installing or upgrading VMware Tools might fail for VMs powered on before configuring ProductLocker

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

If ProductLocker is configured using the steps mentioned in Installing and upgrading the latest version of VMware Tools on existing hosts on a host with VMs already powered on, these powered on VMs fail to detect the presence of VMware Tools ISO images available on the configured ProductLocker. Installing or upgrading VMware Tools in these VMs might fail due to lack of VMware Tools ISO even when the required VMware Tools ISO images exist on the ProductLocker. The failure results in the log message in vmware.log in the VM's directory even when the required VMware Tools ISO image is present on ProductLocker.

...
<TIMESTAMP>| vmx| I125: TOOLS VMware ESX did not ship with the tools ISO.
...

Resolution

This issue is resolved in:

• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5 P03, available at VMware Downloads.
• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7 Update 1, available at VMware Downloads.

The state of VMware Tools ISO image is cached in the VM state, which can be cleared by performing one of the several operations. The operations include but not limited to vMotion, suspend-resume, power cycle and snapshot restore.

Once the VM state is cleared, it will be able to detect the VMware Tools ISO images available on the ProductLocker. It allows installation or upgrade of VMware Tools in the guest operating system.

For more information on installing and upgrading latest VMware Tools on existing hosts, see Installing and upgrading the latest version of VMware Tools on existing hosts.