Update Manager cannot enter maintenance mode

[SirHaschke]

Hi,
we use vSphere 6.7 and i try to patch my ESXI hosts with update manager.
My first try failed with an error that the ESXI hosts could not enter maintenance mode.
I enter maintenance mode manually and then it worked fine.
Is this a normal behaviour?
If not what can causes this?

Regards
Dennis

[NathanosBlightc]

How did you do (putting into the maintenance mode) in the first try? Is there any special error/warning related to this matter?

Maintenance mode just requires all VMs of that Host to be power-off or you migrate them to another host. There must be no operating virtual machine ...How did you do (putting into the maintenance mode) in the first try? Is there any special error/warning related to this matter?

[KocPawel]

First you can take a look on these options:

If enter maintenance mode fails, you should take a look on logs to find out why it happened.

If it is a cluster try check this checkbox:

If fails, go to logs and give us more details.

[SirHaschke]

On the first try i do not set the maintenance mode because i thought the update manager do this.
In the log i saw this:

At this time no VMs are running on that host.

[SirHaschke]

KocPawel

I set this options !

Screenshot from the log in my post. Or do you mean another log?

[KocPawel]

Take a look on ESXi to logs:

/var/log/esxupdate.log

Maybe there is some hint.

And please, paste logs in text, because i don't know german.

[sjesse]

Have you checked that any machines aren't on the host, there are cases where some won't move and you need to do it manualy, regardless of what the settings are,

[SirHaschke]

I attached the log but i found nothing...
Update time 13.11.19 18.00

sjesse​

Yes, there are definetifly no machines on the host.
I updated two ESXI hosts in the same cluster and on every host i must turn on maintenance mode manually.

[KocPawel]

Hmmm, i have no idea.

Could you check also: log file at /var/log/vmware/hostd.log to determine if the hostd management agent was experiencing an issue?

Edit:

One more think. What happened when you tried to install patches? Did host start entering maintenance mode and stuck at 19% for a while or crashed immediately?

[SirHaschke]

In this folder there is only a hostdCgiServer-2099686-0001.dmp file.

On the first try without manually entering the maintenace mode the job failed after 15 min.
After that i enter the mantenace mode manually and the i strat the update Job and it runs till the end.

[SirHaschke]

Today i updated 2 ESXi 6.7 hosts in another cluster, controlled bei the same vCenter.
Works fine. Update Manager can enter the maintenance mode.
Strange...….