ESXi 7.02 reboots instead of powering off when Shutdown command issued

[srwsol]

Has anyone had an issue with ESXi 7.02 rebooting instead of powering off when given the shutdown command?   I've had this happen on two different machines now, with two different patch levels of ESXi 7.02.   The first time it happened on an Intel NUC, and I just disregarded it because the NUC isn't a supported platform.   However, it just happened on an Intel s2600 motherboard that is supported, as I was testing a UPS shutdown script.  The script issued a powershell "Stop-VMhost -Force" command and rather than power off it rebooted, which is about the worst thing that can happen when the battery backup power is almost gone.   The Stop-VMhost doesn't have any options concerning restart versus power off, but I was assuming it means power off.    I can get around this by simply having the script not issue a Stop-VMhost command after the VMs have received their own shutdown commands and just let the computer go off when the power fails as it doesn't seem that ESXi itself has issues if the power is cut rather than being shutdown, but as this has happened on two different platforms now I'm wondering if there was a bug introduced somewhere in ESXi 7.02.   

The bios in both computers is set to automatically boot upon power being applied, which is what you want for a computer in a location that isn't attended 24x7, but up to now that hasn't caused a reboot when ESXi was shutdown.   

If anyone with a home lab would like to try setting their bios to automatically start when power is applied and then try to shutdown ESXi to see if it powers off or reboots I'd appreciate the feedback.  I don't know at this point if it's something particular to how I have ESXi configured (on both machines), or if this is a bug.   I know it didn't used to reboot upon shutdown on the s2600 motherboard, but I don't remember the last patch level that I actually tried it and verified that it worked. 

[leifbln]

Hi  

i'm experiencing the same issue with my Intel NUC. The mentioned parameter for automatically boot after power didn't changed it unfortunately. 

Tried several BIOS options but didnt had success. 

Maybe someone else is suffering this issue? At the beginning I thought this is an unique issue on Intel NUC, but it seems not only happening on Intel NUC.

Kind Regards, 
Leif

[srwsol]

I just upgraded ESXi on the NUC to 7.03f and the same thing still happens:   shutdown = reboot rather than poweroff.   

 

Haven't upgraded the S2600 motherboard system yet.   

[mkolus]

Same here, but in my case with a clone with two NICs Intel L225V. The server was shutting down correctly when I had *one* nic. Now with two nics "shutdown" means "restart".

[srwsol]

Now that's a very interesting observation!    Both of the computers I'm having the issue with also have two nics.   As the nics are part of the motherboards I'm not able to remove one, but perhaps I can disable one in the bios and see what happens.   It might be a few weeks before I get an opportunity to take one down long enough to conduct the test though.

[sqkulaly]

Did you guys ever get your issue resolved? I have an NUC with multiple NICs and 7.03 reboots initiating a shutdown command.

[rick3_]

I have the same issue Intel NUC 11 with ESXI 7.02 and 8 andthe last bios. I only have one NIC. Looking for resolution I can't shutdown the device remotely properly when the UPC is low.

[srwsol]

The only temporary solution is to shutdown all the VMs and then let the power drop.  ESXi itself doesn't appear to have a problem being powered off while running.   That's what I'm doing.   I've set my shutdown script to only shutdown the VMs and not attempt to shutdown the hypervisor.   

ESXi 8 is out now and next month I'll get the chance to install it on the NUC and see if this problem is fixed in the new version.  

[srwsol]

Bad news .    I upgraded my nuc 11 to ESXi 8.00 and it still reboots when you try to shut it down.    The screen about the system being halted and that you can now power it off appears briefly at the end of the shutdown sequence, and then it reboots.   

[srwsol]

Bad news continues.   I just upgraded my NUC 11 to ESXi 8.0b, and the BIOS to TNTGLV57.0070.2022.1028.1324, and the reboot problem on shutdown still occurs.  I haven't tried upgrading S2600 system yet.    

[srwsol]

Upgraded NUC to BIOS 0073 to solve some AMT problems and the reboot problem still occurs 

[srwsol]

Well, more bad news.  Bios versions 0074 and 0075 do not fix the problem, nor does upgrading to ESXi 8.0.2.    Also, Intel has outsourced support for all NUCs through version 13 to Asus, which I take to mean that those systems are now End of Life, so no more Bios upgrades are likely to be forthcoming.   Therefore our only hope is that VMWare eventually fixes it by accident, as since this isn't an officially supported platform they aren't going to go out of their way to do anything about it, unless perhaps we can get William Lam to put in a good word for us. 

[bluefirestorm]

This one is for the NUC. It recommends changing from Modern Standby to Legacy S3 Standby in the UEFI.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000089009/intel-nuc.html

See whether your specific NUC has the same/similar UEFI/BIOS settings (and the S2600 motherboard as well).

 

[srwsol]

Unfortunately the NUC 11 doesn't have that setting.   However, while playing around with this (I was rebooting over and over, trying various BIOS settings, with ESXi in Maintenance Mode so that the VMs wouldn't start after each boot), a couple of times it actually shut down rather than rebooted.   I didn't have enough time to completely figure it out, but I'm thinking it has something to do with whether or not a keyboard and monitor are connected.   I know that sounds strange, especially since I have the BIOS set to virtual displays so that it will boot headless, but I know one of the times it worked was when I had the monitor turned off and was invoking the reset from the virtual AMT console using Mesh Commander.    I'll probably need several hours to do a full series of tests where I document everything and what changes between each boot attempt in order to do this right and figure out what the triggering event is.   The other setting I'm suspicious about and need to test is the one about whether the computer autostarts when power is restored.   I have that set to on because as it's unattended most of the time that's what I want to happen after a power failure, but I'm wondering if setting that to last state or off might affect this.   I'll try that next time too.

[nick_heaton]

I'm not holding my breath on VMware nor Intel (or really ASUS since NUC support has transitioned to them in 2024) to fix this.

As a mildly better solution, you can configure the ESXi host to halt, but not power off. This means you can shutdown without having to monitor the host while it's powering off. Then once it's halted, you can proceed to power off via physically holding the power button down, or issuing a power off command over Intel AMT.

 

To do this, set the /Misc/PowerOffEnable advanced setting to 0.

 

ssh -- esxcli system settings advanced set -o "/Misc/PowerOffEnable" --int-value=0

ESXi Web Interface -- Host > Manage > System > Advanced Settings. Search for "PowerOffEnable" and set this to 0.

vCenter -- Find the host, then go to Configure > System > Advanced System Settings > Edit > search for "PowerOffEnable" and set to 0.

 

Here is a screenshot of when a host halts but doesn't power off, waiting for you to power off the NUC.

[srwsol]

That's a good idea, and I'll give it a try!   Right now I've got the UPS shutdown script set to shutdown the VMs, but to not shutdown ESXi itself, as it just reboots and powers the VMs back up.   Unlike the VMs, ESXi doesn't seem to mind being powered off while it's running at least if not's doing anything, which it isn't after all the VMs have been shutdown, but it would be cleaner to get it to a place where it's ready to be shutdown.