Unable to upgrade from 6.5.0 to esxi 7.0.3 - An unexpected error occurred

[Mauricio888]

Hello vmware community,

I am wondering if you could help with this issue I am having while upgrading a system from ESXi 6.5.0 to 7.0.0.

The system boots up correctly from the installer iso, The following is presented while scanning for available devices

---- An unexpected error occurred -----

See logs for details

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xca in position 1: invalid continuation byte

I am attaching a screenshot of the error and another with the actual 6,5.0 configuration.
Any guidance will be highly appreciated.

Thanks

[JailBreak]

CPU E5-2430 v3 is not compatible with vSphere 7. It works on vSphere 6.5, maybe you can work in 6.7(never tested) but not vSphere 7.

[Mauricio888]

Thank you @JailBreak 

I have however another similar server (same server/type of CPU) installed with vmware 7, I used the boot option

AllowLegacyCPU=True

For some reason this is failing. Is this error specifically related to the CPU?

[JailBreak]

Yes, AllowLegacyCPU=True should be added to bypass any CPU legacy issues.

Regarding the error itself, it complains about 'utf-8' codec can't decode I only see this a long time ago regarding ESXi 5.5, and was about bootbank issues.

Was this ESXi already upgraded from old 5.x to 6.x?

Can you post the upgrade logs for this?

[Mauricio888]

Hi @JailBreak 

Yes, this was upgraded form 5.5 to 6.5.0, I removed the content of /altbootbank and replaced (only the file that was in /altbootbank) with the one in /bootbank but got the same error.

Here the logs,

Thank you for taking the time to review this.

Mauricio

[Alex_Romeo]

Hi,

Hp DL 360 gen8 is not compatible with 6.7 and 7.0

https://techlibrary.hpe.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/supportmatrix/vmware.aspx

Notes: This server is supported with the Last Pre-Gen9 ESXi custom image for either 6.5, 6.5 U1, 6.5 U2 or 6.5 U3.

regards,

Alex_Romeo

[JailBreak]

Even is not supported, we can use it. I use vSphere 7 U3 in my two DL360 G7

[Mauricio888]

Right, I have in fact another server with the exact CPU and brand and is working fine, not sure what is wrong with this one,

[Mauricio888]

Do you think I should move the whole content from /bootbank to /altbootbank?

[JailBreak]

Are you using a vSphere standard ISO right? Not a HPE customized ISO?

The previous installation was installed with an HPE or VMware ISO?

[Mauricio888]

I tried with both:

VMware-ESXi-7.0.3-19482537-HPE-703.0.0.10.9.0.11-Apr2022
VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0U3d-19482537.x86_64

[JailBreak]

First, never install a custom HPE ISO in a non-supported server. This will bring a lot of issues, always use the VMware ISO.