This error gets me from time to time, regardless which server vendor, mostly on hosts that were upgraded a couple of times. In this case it was a ESXi host currently running a pretty old build of ESXi 6.7 U3 and my job was the upgrade to 7.0 Update 3c.
If you add a upgrade baseline to the cluster or host, and you try to remediate the host, the task fails with a dependency error. When taking a closer look into the taks details, you were getting told that the task has failed because of a failed dependency, but not which VIB it caused.

You can find the name if the causing VIB on the update manager tab of the host which you tried to update. The status of the baseline is “incompatible”, and not “non-compliant”.

To resolve this issue you have to remove the causing VIB. This is no big deal and can be done with esxcli. Enable SSH and open a SSH connection to the host. Then remove the VIB.
[root@esx-01:~] esxcli software vib list | grep -i ssacli ssacli 4.17.6.0-6.7.0.7535516.hpe HPE PartnerSupported 2020-06-18 [root@esx-01:~] esxcli software vib remove -n ssacli Removal Result Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective. Reboot Required: true VIBs Installed: VIBs Removed: HPE_bootbank_ssacli_4.17.6.0-6.7.0.7535516.hpe VIBs Skipped: [root@esx-01:~]
You need to reboot the host after the removal of the VIB. Then you can proceed with the update. The status of the upgrade baseline should be now “not-compliant”.
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Hi.
I owe you a beer!
Marco
Thank you for this. What a life saver.
Super solution to the problem. The update worked within a short time, thank you for the blog entry.
thanks for this, greatly appreciated!
Great article. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks! I tan into this upgrading ESX 6.5 host to 7.0.
Awesome, thank you for this! With ESXi 6.7 going to EOL, I had to get the rest of our older ESXi hosts upgraded to 7.0 before the next few days. The uptime on the hosts is something like 1000 days, so I will hate having to break that with a reboot, but it is what it is. At least we will get to have the hosts upgraded to 7.0 now.
What in the actual f***? Your first paragraph is relevant to the discussion, but how is the second one even remotely relevant? Keep that kind of thing to yourself
Ok, what did I just read? Your first paragraph is relevant to this article, but how is your second one even remotely connected to it? Keep that stuff to yourself man
Worth remembering that the root cause is likely to be that you’re currently using a vendor specific version of ESXi, and trying to upgrade using a vanilla VMWare version.
If you use a vendor specific version to upgrade the issue VIBs won’t be an issue…and you’ll retain all of your funcionality.
Perfect! Works like a charm!
Work for me. Muchas Gracias, keep doing this.
Saludos,
I did the upgrade and it worked great! Thank you.
However, now my HPE server does not see the HBAs. Any clue to how to get those to show back up? We are using Emulex LPe120000 HBAs. Thank you.
-Rusty
I tried this last night and managed to get it working! Thank you!
Awesome, this worked for me when upgrading our 6-host cluster to ESXi 7. Thanks!
Excelent Thanks!!!