Troubleshooting VMware High Availability (HA) issues in VMware vCenter Server

In this article, I will be discussing a recent ticket I received from a customer who was receiving alerts about the “vSphere HA host status” in their 2-host setup. I will cover the steps I took to resolve this issue.

To begin with, let’s understand what vSphere HA is. It is a feature of VMware’s vSphere virtualization platform that provides automatic recovery for virtual machines in the event of a host failure. When a host failure occurs, vSphere HA automatically restarts the affected virtual machines on other available hosts in the cluster, ensuring minimal downtime and service disruption.

Moving on to the troubleshooting steps I took:

Troubleshoot #1:

• Logged in to the vCenter and clicked on the cluster level.
• Went to config and navigated to the vSphere HA and disabled and enabled it.
• However, this did not resolve the issue.

Troubleshoot #2:

• Tried to disconnect and reconnect the host.
• Checked the vSphere HA, but the alarm was still showing.

Troubleshoot #3:

Disabled the vSphere HA from the cluster level.

Logged in to one of the ESXi and checked if FDM vib was present using the command –

esxcli software vib list |grep fdm

Since FDM vib was present, I removed it using the command –

esxcli software vib remove -n vmware-fdm -f

Now, login to the vCenter and using the below command copied FDM vib to the ESXI using the command –

cd /etc/vmware-vpx/docRoot/vSphere-HA-depot/vib20/vmware-fdm/

scp VMware_bootbank_/VMware_bootbank_vmware-fdm_x.x.0-xxxxxx.vib root@<esxi-ip>:/tmp

Installed FDM VIB again using the command –

esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/VMware_bootbank_vmware-fdm_x.x.0-xxxxxx.vib -f

Verified the FDM vib in the host using the command –

esxcli software vib list |grep fdm

Started the vSphere HA services from the cluster level, and the alert disappeared.

In conclusion, I hope this article has been helpful to you. If you have any doubts while implementing these steps, feel free to let me know in the comments, and I will be happy to assist you. If you are still facing any issues, you can connect with me over Twitter.