Unable to remove a VIB which is blocking upgrade

[dbutch1976]

I have a server which is behaving very strangely,  takes a long time to boot and even once it's up it take a long time to become fully functional, when I connect to the iLO it seems to freeze for long periods, at one point it was unbootable until I powered it off and back on agian. It's currently running 6.5, when I attempted to upgrade it to 7.0.3c I see the following incompatible VIBs:

 

Cannot create a ramdisk of size 456MB to store the upgrade image. Check if the host has sufficient memory.The upgrade has VIBs that are missing dependencies:
QLogic_bootbank_scsi-bfa_3.2.5.0-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820
QLogic_bootbank_scsi-bfa_3.2.5.0-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820

I attempt to remove the incompatible VIBs with the following command, but it errors out:

[root@w0575darcsencl01hyp11:~] esxcli software vib remove -n scsi-bfa
[StatelessError]
The transaction is not supported: VIB QLogic_bootbank_scsi-bfa_3.2.5.0-1OEM.550 .0.0.1331820 cannot be removed live.
Please refer to the log file for more details.

 

I suspect possible corrupt system files because I have run this command to remove the this VIB dozens of times and it's never errored out before. Is there a way to either do a repair of the system files/disk or to force the removal of this VIB using another method?

 

 

[__invited__rob_]

I assume you confirmed you were running in maintenance mode.

Can the update be done when booting from the install files (USB) / ILO ISO vs. through the console?

You can also try to update the VIB rather than remove it?

For an HPE server, see if there are updated vendor files for the model of server matching the OS version you want to go to:

http://vibsdepot.hpe.com/

 

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[dbutch1976]

I assume you confirmed you were running in maintenance mode.

(yes)

Can the update be done when booting from the install files (USB) / ILO ISO vs. through the console?

(tried with 6.5U3, 6.7U3, both upgrade and update VIBs, all failed with a variety of errors)

You can also try to update the VIB rather than remove it?

(yes)

For an HPE server, see if there are updated vendor files for the model of server matching the OS version you want to go to:

http://vibsdepot.hpe.com/

This I have a question about. I am using the custom HPE ISO, that should contain the updated VIBs if they exist should they not? I've take a look on the link provided and I cannot see where I would find the VIB I'm looking for, namely:

QLogic_bootbank_scsi-bfa_3.2.5.0-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820

 

 

 

[a_p_]

Before you are going to upgrade the host to v7.0, please ensure that this version supports your hardware!
https://www.vmware.com/go/hcl

André

[naveenbaldwa1]

Upgrade BIOS and ILO firmware, before doing this make sure server has warranty in case of any hardware failure then try upgrade by mounting iso to ILO.

Make sure these vib are not in use before removing.

Where did you get error related to these vib, screenshot would have more clarity.

Try this command to remove vib:

esxcli software vib remove --vibname=xyz

[dbutch1976]

Screenshot attached.

[IRIX201110141]

Can you show us a

esxcfg-scsidevs -a

?

It it possible to "unload" modules.

Regards,
Joerg

[dbutch1976]

Screenshot as requested:

 

[IRIX201110141]

Reboot the Host while in MM and try again.

[dbutch1976]

I've rebooted many times. There seems to be something else wrong with this host:

1. I need to power it off in order to reboot, rebooting within maintenance mode will result in the host not finding its local disk and repeatedly attempting to boot from the NIC.

2.The host takes a long time to boot, even once it's up to the point that I can log into the console it takes another 20 minutes to become fully responsive.

3. When it finally becomes responsive it is not in maintenance mode and I have to put it back into maintenance each time.

I suspect that there are corrupt files on the local drive where ESXi is installed. If I reboot with the 7.0.3c ISO mounted and try to do an upgrade there is an error and the local drive disappears.

[naveenbaldwa1]

put ESXi host into maintenance mode then try same command 

[LZVirtEng]

I ran into this recently with that exact VIB on a single host when trying to upgrade from 6.7U3 to 7.0U3.  For me, rebooting the host and then trying the command again allowed me to remove it (and then reboot yet again for that to take effect)  But I also use this command -  esxcli software vib remove -vibname scsi-bfa 

I believe either command will work fine, but you never know.