Host won't rejoin cluster after patching - ESXi 5.5

[Proinsias]

This is my first post here (long time lurker) so bear with me if I'm a little inaccurate with my terminology.

I manage two clustered ESXi 5.5 group of hosts in two different locations. Both clusters comprise of five HP Proliant BL460c G7 and one Proliant BL460c G8 blades (six hosts in total).

I carried out the patching, one host at a time, on one cluster and completed the entire cluster without any problems. When I carried out patching the second cluster, the first host I patched wouldn't re-join the cluster when I took it out of maintenance mode. I accessed the host via the HP ILO and tried restarting the management agents but this didn't help. The only way I could get the host back into the cluster was to remove the applied patches. Once this was done the host re-joined without any problem.

I assumed that this might be something unique to this host so I migrated my VMs on to another host in that cluster and tried the process again. The same issue arose after patching the second host and I had to remove the patches to get that host to re-join the cluster again.

I have tried looking through the KB articles but I haven't been able to find anything that might be applicable to my problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be the problem and what my next steps should be or what might be causing this problem?

Many thanks

[rcporto]

Please, tell us the build number of your vCenter Server and the build of the new updated host.

[Proinsias]

Hi Richardson Porto,

Thank you for the reply. This is what I am currently using -

VSphere Client

Version 5.5.0

Build 3024345

VMware vCenter Server

Version 5.5.0

Build 2183111

ESXi 5.5.0 (VMkernel Release Build 2068190) - This is the build after I've removed the patches and rejoined the host to the cluster.

I'm running 86 VMs on those 6 clustered hosts so I had to remove the patches and get the host back into the cluster.

Host model is - HP Proliant BL460c G7

Regards

Proinsias

[vCJ]

If I am not mistaken you have to Upgrade vcenter to 5.5 upd 3 for that to work. You are patching the hosts to a Level where vmware change the ssl version. 

I did the same thing, and upgrading vcenter solved it.

[rcporto]

I suspect that you installed the patch that disable SSLv3 on host what will break the communication with vCenter, since your vCenter is Update 2b, but to confirm that, you need to tell the build of the updated host and the name of patch that you have applied.

[Proinsias]

vCJ & Richardson Porto

Thank you both for your replies. I will take a look at your suggestions\approaches to this issue and post back with the results.

Once again

Thank you both very much.