Upgrade to ESXi 7.0: Missing dependencies VIBs Error

This posting is ~2 years years old. You should keep this in mind. IT is a short living business. This information might be outdated.

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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Patrick Terlisten
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16 thoughts on “Upgrade to ESXi 7.0: Missing dependencies VIBs Error”

  3. Simon

    Super solution to the problem. The update worked within a short time, thank you for the blog entry.

  7. Bill James

    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.

    1. Somme Doode

      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

    2. Steve Adams

      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

  8. Pete Massay

    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.

  11. Ken 'Rusty' Prentice

    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

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